


I Want to See

by KindreTurnany



Series: Watchtower [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Stiles, Explicit Language, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Minor Character Death, Murder, Non-Explicit Sex, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Peter Hale & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Telepathic Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:06:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 70,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26223865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KindreTurnany/pseuds/KindreTurnany
Summary: It's time to end it.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: Watchtower [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/42282
Comments: 58
Kudos: 57





	1. The Wind Began to Howl

**Author's Note:**

> I am sorry this took so long! Thank you all for being so kind and patient. I hope this can live up to your expectations for Watchtower’s finale.
> 
> If you need to know more about any of the warnings before reading, feel free to ask! My gmail and tumblr are both rinzijade. I also respond to comments here, though I prefer not to include spoilers for future chapters in them if possible.
> 
> Title from Kansas - The Wall. The chapter titles are pulled from the six songs I used for story titles over the course of this series. In order, they are: Bob Dylan - All Along the Watchtower, Styx - These Are the Times, Fall Out Boy - The Phoenix, The Hush Sound - Momentum, Walk the Moon - Up2U, and The Wall again. 
> 
> I listened to Thalia's podfic version of Watchtower as part of my prep, and it helped so much. You should check it out too if you haven’t already.
> 
> aeron4 started a German translation of TINOF at http://www.fanfiktion.de/s/5a3a2bf3000092bd16726090/1/This-is-not-our-fate. You have to be logged in to read it because the rating is very high. I still can’t believe you can read something I wrote in another language!

Stiles dreamed of the first person he ever killed. Her skin was red and peeling, and she smelled of burning. She tried to claw his eyes out, to cave his face in, to kill him first. Stiles never knew her, but he knew she deserved better even as he crushed her throat beneath his boot.

Though he never knew her himself, Stiles dreamed of the first person Derek ever killed. Paige had been a cellist, but as she lay in Derek's arms among the nemeton's roots, all that remained to her was pain. Derek spared her that. It had been his fault. She deserved better.

Stiles dreamed of someone else, someone he'd never known or killed, though he dreamed of wrapping trembling hands around his throat, claws sinking in to rip the flesh. In the dream, Stiles never worried his victim deserved better. In the dream, he never cared.

Though his waking was slow, Stiles came to it in fits and starts, sometimes feeling Derek's arms around him and others only the grip of Stiles’ hands around the stranger's throat. When he finally woke, he found Derek combing his fingers through Stiles’ hair as he whispered that he was safe here.

"Is it morning?" Stiles mumbled more than asked.

"No." Derek frowned. Stiles hadn't turned around to see his face, but through their bond, he felt the frown, and the concern behind it. They weren't alone. "But you need to get up."

Stiles scrambled to turn or stand. It didn't matter which, since he fell. Derek caught him.

"Ethan," Derek answered the question Stiles hadn't asked. "He's outside. He'll reach the door soon."

"Go let him in," Stiles said, grabbing at his cane so he could get downstairs on his own.

At least they were at Stiles’ home. Then again, at the loft, Stiles would wait for Ethan to climb the stairs himself.

Ethan was hardly Stiles' friend, but he was an ally. Stiles couldn't imagine why Ethan would show up at his house at—he checked the time—3 a.m., which made it almost certain he needed help.

Even with much of his weight on the cane, Stiles' knee ached. He worked it slowly to ease the stiffness of sleep.

"I smell blood." Derek left the room as he spoke.

 _Ethan's?_ Stiles asked telepathically since Derek had left Stiles to hobble along behind him.

_Some of it._

Stiles sent more a sense of irritation and urgency than anything that fit into words. He was better at words, but this defied them.

 _Aidan's too_ _,_ Derek clarified.

_Is Ethan alone?_

_Yes._

By the time Stiles navigated the stairs, Derek had Ethan sitting on the couch. Derek had a hand on Ethan's shoulder and radiated concern—no, grief.

_Derek?_ Stiles asked, not quite sure what he was picking up on.

_Aidan's dead._

"Oh." Stiles realized he'd said it aloud when Ethan turned eyes red from crying toward him.

"Take your time," Derek told Ethan.

"We don't have time." Ethan clenched his teeth. "I don't remember. You need to use your claws."

"We'll get Scott or Peter," Derek promised. "I don't have enough experience."

"We can't wait that long," Ethan growled.

"You can't do anything if I damage your mind." Derek faced Stiles to say, "Start making calls. Deaton first."

Stiles nodded. _Aidan's dead, Ethan's memory was wiped. Anything else?_

_Ethan drove here. His brother's body is in the car. Ask Deaton to examine it._

Stiles grimaced at the idea but dialed as he walked to the other room. Deaton's phone went to voicemail twice before he answered.

"Stiles, do you have any idea what time it is?" Deaton's voice was groggy and annoyed.

"Aidan's dead. Ethan's memory was wiped, but he has Aidan's body. We need you to look at it."

"I'll get set up, but I need the body at the clinic for an autopsy."

"I'll meet you there," Stiles said.

_We're coming too,_ Derek thought. _Ethan wants to stay near Aidan._

_Can you drive and talk to him at the same time?_

_He's not really talking._

_You know what I mean._

_I can. Keep calling._

Stiles did. He called Scott while he put on his shoes. He yelped into Peter's voicemail box when he opened the door to Ethan's truck to find Aidan lying across the backseat. Derek had sort of warned him, but, well, corpse.

"I'll sit with him," Ethan said. "You sit up front."

“Should we… take separate cars?” Stiles asked.

"You can’t drive tonight. Get in.” Derek nudged him mentally as he spoke, to remind Stiles they had rules about when Stiles could drive, rules which depended on how well he could use his knee.

Stiles’ knee would be _just fine_ if he hadn’t been lying on it weird, but he still had calls to make and texts to send, so he clambered into the front passenger seat and let Derek drive to the veterinary clinic.

It had been months since Stiles spoke to Peter on the phone, so he didn't bother calling again, even to explain the accidental voicemail. Instead, he shot Peter a text and called Allison. By the time they reached the clinic, Stiles had woken nearly the entire pack.

Derek and Ethan carried Aidan's body into the clinic, and Stiles followed without hurrying. He couldn't help with the rest. Derek pushed Ethan down into a seat in the waiting room as Stiles entered.

"You can't help now," Derek insisted to Ethan.

"You can."

Derek shook his head and turned to Stiles.

Stiles said, "Scott's heading out immediately. Peter didn't respond yet."

"Not good enough," Ethan snarled.

Stiles shrugged.

_Stiles! He just lost his brother,_ Derek admonished.

_You know I don't care about the twins._

Derek was equal parts angered and worried by that. _Pretend to care._

_He'll know if I lie._

_Lydia cared about Aidan. Be sad for her._

Stiles considered that and decided he could. He picked a seat near the door and dropped into it, setting his cane against the next chair over.

Stiles asked, _Why would they kill one and wipe the other? It doesn't make sense._

Derek rolled his shoulders, anxious and unsure. "Ethan, why would they let you go?"

Ethan shook his head. "That's what I need you to find out."

"It's a placement thing, right?" Stiles asked Derek. "Can you copy the wounds already on his neck?"

"They healed," Derek pointed out.

"So it wasn't an alpha." Stiles frowned.

Not every wolf who stole memories was an alpha, but most were because it required training and practice.

Allison pushed through the clinic door and practically flew to Ethan's side. She put her arms over his shoulders and spoke soothing apologies. Stiles hadn't thought they were close, but he supposed Allison understood what it was to lose someone important to you.

Stiles, unlike Allison, couldn't be bothered to tax his heart for someone outside his immediate circle of friends.

He frowned. That thought felt off.

_Not my fault,_ Derek told him.

Stiles wanted to frown harder but tried for a neutral expression to avoid scowling at Ethan.

Isaac stood in the doorway, and Stiles realized he had entered with Allison. He had lost his family too, but he hated the twins. Isaac clenched his jaw as a sneer twisted his lips. He took a seat between Stiles and the door and stared directly ahead. Stiles hadn't called him.

Deaton stepped out drying his hands. "I'm not done, but I thought you should know his power was drained."

"Can you tell if it was by an alpha?" Stiles asked.

"No."

"Can you tell anything from the size of the claw marks?"

"I said I'm not done. I'll let you know when I discover anything else." He turned without waiting for Stiles to reply.

"We know it's not an alpha," Ethan said.

"We don't know that they were alone," Stiles explained. "And since they drained one of you and let the other go, we don't know that you were both attacked by the same person."

"Why take my memory if they didn't kill my brother?" Ethan demanded.

"To hide something else." Stiles tapped on the arm of his chair, considering what that something could be.

"Aidan was right next to me!"

"You can't deny something here is fishy," Stiles insisted.

Ethan growled but couldn't argue.

_Are you sure you can't check his memory?_ Stiles asked Derek.

Stiles' phone rang. It was Lydia. He hadn't called her before because she was across the country.

"Lydia?" Stiles asked.

"You're awake," she said breathlessly. "I'm too late."

"For what?"

"Aidan."

"Yeah. I'm sorry."

"There are bears coming for you," Lydia said.

"Bears?"

"I hear them growling."

_"Bears?"_

"Yes, Stiles. Bears. I assume they're not normal bears, but I don't get a lot of background information."

"Sorry. For me, me, or like me us?"

"What?"

"Are the bears coming for me specifically or the pack?"

Lydia was quiet a moment. "I don’t know who they’re after."

"We'll watch out for bears."

"Tell Ethan I'm... I'm sorry." Her voice struggled through the short phrase, nearly too heavy to carry on.

"I will." He waited a moment before asking, "Do you know what happened? Ethan's memory was taken."

"I don't. I'm sorry."

Stiles nodded, remembered she couldn't see it, and said, "You did everything you could."

"Then I can't do enough."

"Lydia, you—"

"I know," she cut him off. "I need to go. Text me when you know more."

"I will."

"Bears?" Isaac asked after Stiles hung up.

"Do _you_ want to question Lydia further?"

Isaac shook his head but mouthed 'bears' to himself, still silently incredulous.

Derek sat on Stiles' other side, evidently having left Ethan in Allison's care.

"Were you listening?" Stiles asked.

"Bears," Derek confirmed.

"There are wild black bears in California," Stiles offered. "Though it could also be less literal, like she might hear a wolf but really it's a werewolf."

Derek nodded.

"She didn't know how Aidan died, so I don't think they're linked."

"Because we need more monsters," Derek grumbled.

Beacon Hills would always have more monsters; the nemeton drew them in. Or, it was supposed to. Stiles drew monsters in sometimes too, though the shattered factions of Watchtower had focused enough on each other, so far, to buy Stiles time to heal. It was hard to say whether the nemeton’s monsters or Stiles’ would be worse.

It was too long before Deaton returned again to gaze across the counter at Ethan with sorrowful eyes and explain in a soothing voice that there was little more he could tell them. Aidan had been killed by a werewolf or similar shifter; they had guessed as much on their own. Ethan growled, but Derek and Allison pulled him away.

Isaac looked torn between rolling his eyes and clenching his jaw but settled on shoving his hands in his pockets and staring out the window into the early morning fog. Stiles wondered if he faked decency as poorly as Isaac. He worried Isaac might have him beat.

**.x.**

Ethan had stayed with Allison last night, leaving Stiles free to meet Gregson at the café in the morning as usual. It was empty otherwise, so Stiles flipped Passh her tip and made it dance in the air for her with a smirk.

"Someday, I will figure out how you do that," she said as she snatched it.

"You're one of those people who don't think 'because magic' is a good enough explanation, aren't you?" Stiles laughed.

“Would it be for you?”

“You’ve got me there.” Stiles winked.

Passh rolled her eyes and motioned behind him. "I think Sara's tired of waiting for you anyway. Your drinks'll be right up."

"I mean, that's _left_ from my perspective." Stiles motioned to the pickup counter to his left.

"You're stalling to avoid walking back again. You can't fool me." She laughed as she began steaming milk.

Passh wasn't entirely wrong. Hard tile felt jarring to walk across, at least compared to grass or carpet. Not that his knee was bad once he’d rested it properly, or Derek would have found some way to stop Stiles from driving himself to the café. Still, Stiles leaned on his cane and watched Passh work.

“I could walk them over for you,” Passh offered. “It’s literally part of my job to help customers.”

Stiles made a face at that. “You’ve got carriers for carrying that I can carry one-handed.”

Passh rolled her eyes but didn’t press. It was hardly the first time Stiles had insisted on carrying the drinks himself.

"What's 'Passh' short for?" he asked.

"Passion Tea."

"I'm dense as hell and still know that's a lie. Is it also a hint?"

"Do you intend to take it?" Passh glanced up long enough for Stiles to see her smirk.

"Only if the hint is not to ask again because I missed it otherwise. You guys don't even sell Passion Tea."

"Yeah, the line works better at my other job."

“Not sure it helps, but my given name is Mieczysław.”

“Oh, wow.” She chuckled and added a little extra caramel to his macchiato. “It does help a little, but you have to be at least a level five friend to unlock my secret name.”

“I saw some flowers outside. As a friendly acquaintance, I should only need to spam-gift you a few thousand of them.”

With another laugh, Passh set his and Gregson's drinks in a carrier and brought it to him by the register. "Enjoy your consumable luxury good." She began cleaning her steaming pitchers.

When he reached the table, Stiles said, "She's in a good mood today."

"It only took near-fatal injuries and a year of chronic pain for you to have a conversation with her. Why wouldn't a girl be happy?" Gregson arched an eyebrow as she pulled her latte from the carrier.

"Yes, Gregson. Sick burn. Very good." Stiles dropped into the chair beside her and leaned his cane against the table.

"Just keeping it real, sir."

Stiles grimaced. "Have you considered never speaking to your boyfriend ever again?" Gregson had never used that phrase before, but it sounded like something Dumbo might say.

"Occasionally, but I've decided against it." Gregson stared out at the rain rather than say more.

"Why isn't he here?" Stiles asked. "He loves slurping blended abominations at me."

"He's on recon."

"You didn't say where." Stiles narrowed his eyes.

"Plausible deniability, sir."

"He didn't tell you."

"You know how he gets when he doesn't want to share."

"I thought he was always like that."

Gregson rolled her eyes. "More importantly: Setter reported in. She and Spade shook an FBI tail. They can report in, but Beacon Hills is exactly where Jesters would be expected."

Stiles nodded. The FBI wasn't an enemy, but that just made tailing his people rude. "Should we call them in or keep them out of sight?"

Gregson tilted her head.

"What?" Stiles asked.

"Are the pain meds getting to you? You don't generally ask for advice, sir."

"I don't get pills anymore. I'm also not a trained strategist."

"You've been successful so far."

"I’m good against Haha, No, but this is bigger than him."

Gregson sighed. "I'm more scientist and secretary than soldier, and in no way am I a general. If you'll forgive my saying so, sir, Eddie—Felix—is the one you need for this."

"I absolutely won't forgive that," Stiles grumbled, "but that doesn't mean you're wrong. I just don't know how to get him to contribute instead of pretending he can't."

"He lies about _himself_ , sir. Let him lie about how he knows something, and he'll give you accurate information. The... flourishes are usually obvious at that point." Her lips quirked into a smile as she spoke, and Stiles realized she had such terrible taste that she enjoyed Dumbo's sense of humor.

"Tell Setter and Spade to lie low for now. Keep an ear to the ground for any word on Haha, No, but don't get caught chasing after it." Then, bitterly, he added, "I'll ask Dumbo's advice later."

Gregson leaned forward to speak, but her text alert chimed in with a line from Del Amitri's "Roll to Me."

"Speak of the devil," Gregson muttered to herself as she unlocked her phone.

Stiles admirably restrained himself from flippant commentary and leaned over to see that the text read, **Mortal Kombat**. Gregson's hand shook, but there wasn't more to read.

She lurched to her feet and tugged Stiles up behind her. "He's in danger."

Stiles gritted his teeth and hurried into the rain after her. The Jeep waited in the parking lot, but Stiles couldn't risk being separated from Gregson with Dumbo in danger.

Del Amitri sang again as they reached Gregson's car, this time notifying her that Dumbo had sent his location. Most of Beacon Hills was filling in and rebuilding, but Dumbo was at an outer edge of town that was deader than ever as the few people left abandoned it for apartments farther into the city. Even crime rates had fallen there, with nothing left worth stealing and no one to attack. Stiles' dad worried that gangs or the city's homeless population would fill the space soon, but even they avoided the area so far.

After they splashed into the car, Gregson shoved the phone into Stiles’ hands and ordered, “Navigate.”

Stiles opened the location pin in Gregson’s navigation app and turned up the volume as an artificial woman’s voice told them to head east on the road in front of the café.

"What the hell is he doing way out there?" Stiles asked.

"He didn't tell me, remember?" She took the next turn so sharply Stiles' knee banged against the door.

He groaned. Mentally, he reached out to Derek. _Dumbo's in trouble. En route for rescue._ He thought the location really hard even though he was better at sending words.

_Got it,_ Derek confirmed. He was with Malia and Cat, but they were farther from Dumbo than Stiles. They'd arrive late. Derek had no trouble with wordless sending. Sometimes, Stiles thought it was easier for Derek than thinking sentences.

Stiles called Scott next and explained what little he knew. There was one thing he didn't share: a feeling in his bones that they were going the right way. Nothing could explain it at this point, so Stiles stared out the window and hoped it would make sense when he got there. Maybe it was coming from Derek. The rain was letting up, though droplets still streaked the car’s windows.

Even with Gregson racing through the empty streets, Stiles saw cracks spreading up building walls and ceilings sagging under their own weight. This area wasn't just abandoned, it was decaying. The fault in the nemeton drove people from this part of town even though it was supposed to act as a beacon drawing them in.

Gregson turned left at the intersection between an old residential area and a shopping mall with the doors and windows boarded over. It felt wrong. Stiles couldn't say how. It reminded him too much of beating his imaginary fist against a psychic wall in Jenneva Cole's lab.

"Other way," Stiles said.

Gregson turned the car even as she argued, "Shouldn't we start where he texted from?"

"Trust me."

They passed the intersection again, and this time it felt right.

A figure crashed through the solid brick of the mall, missing the softer plywood covering the window. Gregson slammed the breaks and swerved into the parking lot, tires sending up a spray of water. Dumbo scurried through the hole and skidded to the car.

Stiles couldn’t reach the back door, so he opened his own and tugged Dumbo in on top of himself.

"Drive!" Dumbo panted, near to panic. "I think they _all_ want to kill me."

Dumbo was hurt. His upper back ached. Stiles pulled the pain of it from Dumbo’s back to Stiles’ left hand using the newest talisman Trick had helped him form, the joker from a deck of playing cards bound to his left wrist by barbed wire and thorned vines growing blue roses. The ink darkened as Stiles pulled pain through it.

Past Dumbo’s shoulder, a shadow loomed in the dark building, shoulders heaving as it breathed deeply. Its eyes glowed red. Gregson floored the gas before Stiles could see more. Dumbo yanked the door shut and clambered off Stiles’ lap to sit in the back seat.

They were going the wrong way.

Stiles had never believed he was tracking Dumbo psychically, but something in that mall called to him. He twisted in his seat for a look.

A woman clung to the back of Gregson's car, fangs bared and eyes glowing blue. In retrospect, she had flown through the wall, and Stiles let himself get distracted by Dumbo.

"Shit," Stiles said, pointing.

Dumbo stuck his tongue at her and leaned between the seats to turn on the rear windshield wipers.

"That won't knock her off," Stiles told him.

"No, but it'll annoy her." Dumbo grinned. It looked hollower than usual. "That's Brenna Dorian, by the way. Her faction sucks, so she hunted me down out of desperation and got mad when I wouldn't tell her where I am."

"So... she cornered Edmund to find Felix for her?" Stiles asked, mostly sure that was what Dumbo had said.

"Before you ask, I couldn't tell her anything because I have no idea where Joker is hiding Felix Lorrain." Dumbo winked.

"I despise you," Stiles said.

"She might be onto me anyway, just a little," Dumbo admitted with a wince as he looked back at her. “I mean, if she wasn’t before, she is now, since she should be able to hear us through the car.”

Dorian was trying to climb around the car to reach one of the doors but didn't have a solid enough grip to make it. Dumbo waved at her.

“Why does she want Felix?” Stiles asked.

“To make his strength hers and use it against the saboteurs plaguing her faction as she endeavors to plague Yukio’s.” The grin never left Dumbo’s face, but… Stiles lost whatever bothered him about it as Dumbo leaned back again to blow a kiss at Dorian.

Dorian’s claws ran along the roof of Gregson’s car with a screech like nails on a chalkboard.

“...Are you vagueing about the Jesters?” Stiles asked Dumbo with a wince.

“Yes. Fuck, you’re dense.”

Stiles had ordered those Jesters hidden within other factions to steal or damage supplies whenever they thought they wouldn’t get caught. Little things, here and there. He had considered leaving some kind of Jester calling card but wasn’t ready to show his hand yet. He wanted his knee to heal before he reminded his enemies he was here.

“Does _she_ know who she means?”

“I’d have stopped you from saying it while she’s literally climbing our vehicle if she didn’t.”

Stiles turned toward Dorian and flinched away as she drew an arm back to smash through the window. He took a breath, preparing to push her off before she could do so.

A roar crashed around them and echoed in Stiles' bones.

"I know that roar," Stiles realized.

A large clawed hand, dark with fur, snatched Dorian with enough force to shake the car. The bestial werewolf smashed Dorian to the ground, but another form crashed into him before he could deal the fatal blow.

"Stop!" Stiles screamed to Gregson.

He knew that wolf, had been chased and terrorized by him. Even if he hadn't taken this form in years, Stiles could never forget the first time he saw the beast alpha.

"That's Peter!" Stiles told them as he reached telekinetically to pull the smaller form off Peter and slam it against Dorian as she struggled to her feet.

The car stopped, and Stiles shoved his way out. He had to reach Peter.

"Moron!" Dumbo shouted after him.

Stiles could see now the newcomer was Theo Raeken, alpha of the pseudo-scientific shapeshifters, the chimeras. Theo growled as he wrestled with Dorian.

A hand grabbed Stiles' arm.

"Are you crazy?" Tracy, part-kanima chimera, hissed at him, tail lashing behind her. "You won't survive them at close range."

"I'm touched by your concern," Stiles sneered.

Peter crashed into Theo and Dorian, roaring with mindless rage. He'd been in control when Stiles' saw him last, but he hadn't had the power of an alpha.

Tracy brandished her claws, dripping with paralyzing kanima venom. "I can make you stay back."

Stiles squinted at her, trying to figure out if she wanted him far away for his safety or Theo's. She must have taken his pause for compliance because she raced into the fray to pull Theo out.

The four monsters were too close and moving too fast for Stiles to catch just one, and he lacked the strength to hold them all. The fight crashed back into the mall, this time through a boarded window.

Stiles stepped forward, but Dumbo caught the same arm Tracy had.

"She's right," Dumbo said. "You're a ranged fighter with no melee abilities now, like a wizard but if your werewolf familiar is on a lunch break."

Stiles tugged his arm from Dumbo's grip.

Gregson parked the car beside him and asked, "What would you do to help, sir?"

"I have fucking superpowers." Magic tattoos. Close enough.

"That's not a plan. Get in the car." She pointed with her thumb toward the back door.

"Retreat is a time-honored tactical move," Dumbo added. "The three of them can take a single beta."

"I'm more worried about what happens after that." Stiles didn't get in the car.

Theo and Peter distrusted each other. Theo had just attacked Peter right in front of Stiles, and something about Peter seemed... wild. Stiles couldn't tell if Peter would be able to control himself even if he didn't want to kill Theo.

"The others are on their way," Gregson insisted. "Eddie and I don't have superpowers. We need to get away from here."

Tracy stepped back to the hole in the wall and motioned them forward with one hand. Her face scrunched with annoyance.

"She thinks I should stay," Stiles said, pointing to Tracy.

"That's not suspicious _at all_." Dumbo rolled his eyes but motioned Stiles forward.

"Sir, we should definitely not go in there," Gregson advised even as she followed him forward.

Stiles didn't bother to respond as he led them toward the old mall. The rain had fully stopped, but Stiles was already too wet to make dodging the puddles worth the effort.

A crash sounded from inside.

"They're still fighting?" Stiles asked Tracy.

"Theo and the other alpha are fighting over which one let the bad guy go. Stop them."

"Can't you?"

Tracy shook her head. Paused. Smirked, holding up one claw dripping with venom. "I could _stop_ them, but that wasn't exactly what I meant."

"Then what do you mean?"

She rolled her eyes.

"Wow." Stiles trudged forward. "Hey, idiots! Stop fighting!" He waved his free hand, leaning lightly on his cane with the other.

They ignored him, as he'd expected, though he moved close enough to hear their snarling accusations. Well, Theo’s accusations and Peter’s snarls. That bestial snout made human speech difficult.

Stiles tried again. "You assholes both let her go when you decided to fight each other!"

Peter growled louder than before at that, but it could also have been at Theo kicking him in his wolfy face.

Gregson stepped up beside Stiles and said, "Dorian was focused on holding Yukio at bay. She shouldn't have time to come after us."

"Could she have beaten Yukio?" Stiles asked.

"No," Dumbo said. "Most likely, we sabotaged her too much for her to ignore us anymore, and she thought Felix Lorrain would be her ticket back into power."

Stiles groaned at Dumbo talking about himself in third person but knew better than to bother complaining.

"No one else was strong enough to keep Yukio from crushing the others," Gregson said, raising her voice over the crash as Peter hurled Theo through a closed storefront.

“Um,” Tracy said.

"Yukio won't come after us too, will he?" Stiles asked.

Dumbo answered, "If he's smart, he will."

"Is he smart?"

"Sometimes, but he's often emotional and rash. He got as far as he has through sheer willpower rather than careful manipulation. He finds good advisors, but he doesn't always listen." Dumbo studied the fight, speaking almost absently. "Yukio and Dorian would have had a lot in common if they stopped trying to one-up each other for five minutes."

"So you keep tabs on the board," Stiles noted.

“Stiles,” Tracy said.

"Doesn't everyone?" Dumbo shrugged with one shoulder and turned to ask Gregson, "Do their powers look different?"

"The little one's fabricated and the big one's overwhelmed."

"Overwhelmed?" Stiles asked.

"Maybe overflowing is more right. He's recently come into a lot of power, and he's still adjusting to it."

"Peter wasn't an alpha when he left," Stiles muttered. Something else picked at his brain like an itch between his shoulders. That Peter could only have become an alpha again by killing? No. It wasn’t ideal, but that wasn’t it.

“Stop ignoring me, and stop them!” Tracy held her venom-drenched claws in Stiles’ face this time.

“Step back,” Stiles told her.

_I felt Peter's location,_ Stiles realized, sending the thought to Derek.

_We'll be there soon,_ Derek promised.

When Peter left, he could sense Stiles through their old bond, but Stiles had never read anything from him before. If a werewolf’s strength impacted the strength of a psychic bond, Stiles had never heard of it. Derek was an alpha, had been an alpha as long as he and Stiles had been bonded. Even after Haha, No found out, he never mentioned it as meaningful. It had to be something else.

And yet…

Peter wasn’t just stronger. He had transformed again, taken the same form he used to avenge his family. Despite the way he picked Theo up and hurled him through a wall that was hopefully not load-bearing, Peter didn’t seem angry. Maybe overwhelmed was right.

Power practically vibrated off him. His shoulders heaved with panting breaths, and his eyes burned a brighter red than Theo’s more controlled glare. Stiles’ heartbeat quickened to suit how he imagined Peter’s must race through his transformed chest.

Stiles took in a deep breath so he could scream, "PETER HALE!" at the top of his lungs. When the mall shook, he realized he had projected more than his voice.

Peter and Theo stopped.

"Are you done?" Stiles asked, suddenly short of breath. His pulse returned slowly to normal.

Theo dropped a brick he'd grabbed to bash Peter over the head.

Peter stared into Stiles' eyes for a long moment before he turned away and ran.

Theo readied to chase him, but Stiles said, "Let him go." When Theo arched an eyebrow to question him, Stiles explained, "He can't talk until he changes back, and then he's naked. It's awkward."

"I can change too," Theo said. "Nudity is not that big a deal."

"Maybe we're more prudish than you." Stiles shrugged. "Any chance you saw where Dorian went."

"His furry ass was in the way," Theo complained, motioning the direction Peter had run.

"What a shame. Now I never have to talk to you again." Stiles spun on his good heel and left the mall.

Theo and Tracy could have stopped him but didn't bother.

"How did you find me?" Dumbo asked as he caught up to Stiles after apparently taking the time to stare Theo down or do a short dance.

"You sent us a location. Then Dorian crashed through a wall. I'm guessing Peter threw her?"

Dumbo rolled his eyes. "Don't pretend to be dense. I'm better at it."

"Peter was with you. I found him. Also, you go way over the top, so it's obvious you know more than you share."

"On purpose for your benefit, dumbfuck, sir. Can you find Peter now?"

Stiles concentrated on Peter but got no impression from him. "No."

"Get good." Dumbo shrugged.

Stiles groaned and turned his thoughts away from punching Dumbo only by sheer force of will. "Is there any chance Dorian is the one who killed Aidan?"

"There's always a chance," Gregson answered, "but I still can't imagine _why."_

"She tried to kill Dumbo just now. It could be related."

"She didn't try to kill me. She tried to capture me."

"Whatever."

"She could have captured Ethan," Dumbo pointed out. "If it was her."

"Why was she trying to capture _you?"_ Stiles asked.

Dumbo stuck his tongue out and scrunched up his face. "She wanted information from me. I told you."

"What made her think you had information? Or would give it to her? And why didn't she just send someone else to capture you?"

"Oh, that's probably because she thought I was spying on you for her."

"Fuck you, Dumbo," Stiles groaned.

"In my defense, I thought I could take her."

"Apparently, three of you couldn't take her," Gregson said.

"We got in each other’s way," Dumbo admitted. "I literally tripped over the invisible kid."

"Corey," Gregson corrected automatically.

"There's no way I could have known he was there. He should have moved out of the way. He wasn't even fighting." Dumbo's words were complaints, but the insufferable grin never left his face.

Before Dumbo could complain more, Stiles asked. "Why were you spying on me for Dorian?"

Dumbo's grin faltered, and when he recovered it looked thin, like he'd forced it into place. "We're secretly twins, separated at birth. When we were finally reunited, I swore to see her win the Game of Tower-Thrones."

"You didn't even _want_ to lie there," Stiles complained.

Dumbo pouted. "I wasn't spying on you. I was pretending to spy on you so I could spy on them."

"Them?"

Dumbo counted on his fingers as he listed, "Dorian, Yukio, Mortimer, and Sorokin. They seemed like the heaviest hitters to me."

"Do you know where Sorokin is?"

"No, and his couriers stopped coming for my reports after he realized I was me."

"You being...?"

"Geralt of Rivia."

Stiles sighed and wondered what he had expected. "So you lured Dorian here?"

"No, she was already in town."

"What? Why?"

"To kill you, I assume."

"Herself?"

"If you look very closely next time you fight her, you might notice she's a werewolf."

"I know she is," Stiles growled. "But what happened to her faction?"

Dumbo paused, tilted his head, and tapped his chin. "I’d guess the reason Yukio hasn't swooped in to kill us all is that Dorian left her faction fighting him and came here alone."

Gregson added, “Reports indicate if Dorian lets up on Yukio, he’ll overrun her, but Eddie’s right that the Jesters’ sabotage was successful enough that she can’t beat Yukio any more than she can pull back now. Her own splinter cell system worked against her in this case.”

"So she left them to fight on their own while she stopped us on _her_ own?" Stiles asked.

Dumbo shrugged, winced. Stiles had taken a little pain from him, not healed the slashes across his back. "Dorian is often more hands-on than most of the board. She's its second-youngest member and not known for her patience."

Stiles waved Gregson off when she tried to help him into the car. "Are you blaming the impetuousness of youth? Really?"

"I mean, it's probably gotten out by now that you're injured, so she may just think the opportunity is too good to pass up, even if she's a little late to really catch you incapacitated."

"Did you tell her I'm injured?"

"No," Dumbo scoffed.

"What have you told them all?"

Dumbo had to reach forward from the back seat to put his hand on Stiles' shoulder. "You've met me. What do you honestly think I've told them?"

"I think you drove them insane and Watchtower is defeated."

"Close. Turns out most people stop listening to me when they're annoyed."

"If only I possessed such wisdom." Stiles massaged his temples.

_Stiles,_ Derek thought.

_Oh shit, sorry, party's over._

_I noticed that already. Why isn't my uncle with you?_

_So you know he was here but not why he's not here here?_

Derek frowned so loudly Stiles nearly felt it on his own face. He stood in the mall, empty now except for himself, Malia, and Cat. They smelled Peter, and Derek could see through Stiles' eyes that he wasn't in Gregson's car.

_Fine,_ Stiles grumbled mentally. _He's an alpha again, and I assume he went to get his clothes. He hasn't texted me back yet. Why did you go in if you knew it was over._

_To look for information you missed or left out._

_Subtle burn. Let me know what you find._

"Anything important?" Gregson asked.

"No, but they're looking over the mall."

"Babe, it is so cool that you can see his telepathy." Dumbo giggled. Stiles wondered if there was a way to give back the pain he took.

"Don't call each other Babe in my presence," Stiles whined.

"Well, I'm not calling _you_ Babe," Dumbo said.

Gregson covered a smirk poorly.

Stiles didn't pout, but he slouched in his seat and started texting the pack about what had happened.

**.x.**

Peter found Stiles at home while the others were out looking for him. His eyes were bright even without the supernatural glow, and a smirk danced on his lips. Stiles felt power flowing from him like electricity.

"Who did you kill for it?" Stiles asked.

"No one you care about." Peter had come through the front door, though he had to wait for Stiles to open the ash circle around the house first. They settled on the couch as he asked, "How's the leg?"

Stiles grimaced.

"They did say it would be years."

Stiles had still been hospitalized when Peter left, stuck in a bed with casts for all four limbs. He'd asked about Stiles' progress occasionally over text, but it had still been over a year since they really spoke.

"I thought I'd prove them wrong." Stiles still didn't know how they'd taken his healing into account for their projections. Melissa wouldn't say or didn't know.

Stiles leaned back to better study Peter. The last time he'd been an alpha, he wore a veneer of calm over his power and rage, pretending to be civil and reasonable. Some of that must have been his own madness convincing Peter he _was_ reasonable even as his own beta refused to help him kill. Stiles hated that Peter felt like he had when he bit Scott. They weren't friends then.

"You know I'd have been nude if I'd stayed," Peter said.

"Why were you there? Why were you fighting?"

"I saw your strange minion skulking about and followed him but got somewhat caught up once I'd shifted."

"And Theo?"

"I think he was stalking Dorian."

Stiles grimaced. Maybe he would have to speak to Theo again after all.

"I don't like that boy," Peter noted, though Theo was Stiles' age, hardly a boy anymore.

"Me neither."

"Something about him reminds me of myself. I think it's how easily he lies."

"You don’t like… your own lies?"

"I prefer to be the only one lying. Easier to keep track of what's true that way."

Stiles sighed. "I got the feeling Theo doesn't like you either."

"Can't imagine why."

Stiles said, "You're an alpha now. That could be more competition for him. I already get the feeling he chafes at having Scott distantly in charge and Derek generally around. And apparently someone named Satomi who I'd never heard of before."

"She's a bit dull, to be honest. Good taste in tea though."

"You're just upset she's a pacifist."

"Yes." Peter said it like confirmation of a well-known fact rather than admission of a personal fault. "Other alphas only matter for Theo if he wants Beacon Hills for his own. Coexistence is common among urban packs. Deucalion and his like are the exception, not the rule."

"We don't know enough about Theo to rule that out. We don't know anything about him."

"I thought you knew each other as children."

"He's changed since then. Or he was hiding it."

"It?"

"How hateable he is?"

"That can’t be a word."

"It is."

Peter tilted his head. "It's strange seeing you focus on local problems."

"Don't be a dick," Stiles grumbled. He tapped his knee. "This is entirely the fault of a local problem."

Peter nodded.

"Did you know Dorian was Watchtower while you were fighting?" Stiles asked.

"Your Dumbo made sure of it."

"That makes sense." Stiles hadn't thought of it. "Don't call him mine."

"He's _very_ yours," Peter insisted as a smile spread across his face.

Stiles groaned, but it came out more bitter than he meant it to.

"You're unhappy," Peter noted.

"Of course I'm unhappy. One of my allies is dead, and one of my enemies is in town."

"It's more than that," Peter mused, studying Stiles. He crossed his arms, and after a moment said, "You don't like what I've done." He didn't sound hurt so much as curious.

Stiles shrugged. "I probably don't care about the people you killed. I usually don't."

"How did you know there was more than one?"

"I... didn't."

Peter nodded like that made sense. "Did you think I'd left killing people behind me?"

"No. I've killed people too, remember." Stiles picked at the fabric of his pants. "You said you left for me."

"I left to become stronger, and I did."

"You could have called."

"I didn't have the liberty most of the time. I thought I'd see if you were surprised when I returned."

"I missed you, you asshole."

"I missed you too, but I couldn't rush it."

"What? Finding an alpha to kill?"

"Finding the right alpha. I know how your friends are. I don't believe they'll give me a pass for it, but I found a genuinely evil alpha, one much worse than I am."

"What about Derek and Malia?"

"What about them?"

"Your nephew may not care much about you, but you left right after being reunited with your long lost daughter."

"I texted them while I was gone, when I could. They both seem fine."

"You are a terrible father."

"I never claimed otherwise."

Stiles struggled to better express why Peter should care until he realized suddenly that Peter did. The feeling was gone as quickly as it arrived and didn't feel at home in Stiles' skin.

"I felt you," Stiles said. "That's how we found you."

"What did you feel?"

"Just whether we were going the right way. After the fight, I couldn't tell where you were anymore. I don't feel anything now. Except annoyed." Stiles jabbed his finger in Peter's face to drive the last bit home.

"I'm sorry." Peter shook his head, and managed to sound sincere even though he was practically vibrating in his seat with the effort to stay still. "That's still too much."

"I don't think it's your fault. I think Haha, No knew less about the bond than he thought, and we're finding out what he couldn't be bothered to."

"He's not the one who bonded us." Peter set a hand on Stiles' shoulder and gripped a little too tight. "I haven't stopped getting flashes from you. I've tried. I'd thought since you never felt anything from me, I was safe from Dimitri."

"I'm sorry too."

"Maybe I should leave after we're done with Ethan."

"No." Stiles snatched Peter's wrist even though he hadn't pulled away. "Stay. I don't want you to go again. I'm sure Derek and Malia feel the same, even if they don't admit it."

"I'll think about it."

"You seem much more in control than earlier. Still... extra, but in control."

Peter raised an eyebrow. "It takes a lot of energy to shift that far. There's no point in holding back after that."

Stiles nodded. That felt right.

Peter's eyes narrowed. "You verified that telepathically."

"I don't even know how to do that."

Peter studied him, and Stiles felt something slither through the path that thought had followed before he voiced it.

"Shit," Stiles breathed. "That’s how."

Peter nodded.

"Does that mean it's stronger than before you left?"

"I don't know. I've never tried to use it." Peter spoke in suddenly clipped tones through a clenched jaw.

"You're upset," Stiles pointed out, "but you said before you trust me in your head. Are you that worried about Haha, No?"

Peter shrugged, if less nonchalantly than he might have liked. He swallowed, almost nervously.

"You're hiding something. I can feel it worming down my throat." Stiles coughed, but that couldn’t clear it.

Peter’s eyes narrowed, but then he relaxed with a soft sigh. "I am. It's not something that could endanger you, and knowing it might cause you more trouble."

That was true, Stiles could tell. He nodded. "You also don't want to tell me. It's okay. I don't think I can pull anything so hidden from you."

"You're learning to read me quickly."

"It's not our first rodeo."

Peter chuckled.

"Don't worry," Stiles assured him. "I have only vague impressions, at least half of which I'm reading from your expression, not your mind." He paused. "Can I tell the others you're here?"

Peter nodded tersely.

"You don't want to see them, do you?" Stiles asked as he texted Scott and thought at Derek.

"Your friends are rigidly judgmental."

Stiles shrugged. "You could lie."

"Derek would get it from you."

Stiles winced. "Since he disapproves, he would tell on us. I'm so bad at secrets now."

"It can be frustrating." Peter's smirk returned. "But it's adorable that you still think to try."

"Don't patronize me. You—" Stiles cut off as Malia entered.

She slammed the door behind her and stood with her arms crossed, glaring at Peter with supernaturally blue eyes.

“You could knock!” Stiles admonished, but she ignored him.

It hadn't been long enough since he told the others Peter was here. Someone must have seen him arrive, though Stiles wasn't sure who would tell Malia.

No, wait. Derek. He probably knew before Stiles told him, and he would absolutely tell Malia.

"Peter," she said, crossing her arms and staring him down.

"Malia." Peter's smirk faltered again but didn't fall away entirely.

"You left after you found out about me."

"That wasn't why I left."

"But it wasn't enough for you to stay."

"I called," Peter reminded her. He hadn't called _Stiles._

Malia nodded and sat on Peter's other side. "Are you staying?"

"Do you want me to?"

She took a moment to think it over. "Yes. For now, at least."

"Then I'm staying. For now, at least."

"You're stronger than before," Malia pointed out.

Peter's eyes flashed red. "I am."

Malia tilted her head but looked unimpressed.

Stiles laughed.

"You two will be the death of me," Peter complained.

It wasn’t much longer before Scott arrived with Ethan to interrogate Peter, and Stiles tuned them out, trying to feel something from Peter without reading him through mundane means.

When Derek arrived, he sat and watched Stiles for a moment before asking, _You're not getting anything, are you?_

_Not sure if I can't do it on purpose or if I have to have something not bond-y to start with._

_Why aren't you helping?_ Derek didn't say specifically, but Stiles could sense that he meant Scott and Peter's conversation.

Stiles shrugged.

_Have you listened to any of it?_ Derek asked.

_You know I haven't._

_Scott doesn't feel any more confident he won't harm Ethan than I do, but Ethan won't let Peter near his memories if there's a chance he killed Aidan._

_He didn't. Why would they even think he had with Dorian running around being a much better suspect?_

_Are you sure?_

_Of course I'm sure. What's wrong?_

"You should tell them," Derek said aloud.

Stiles turned around to find the others looking at him expectantly. Peter lounged on the couch still, equal parts irate monarch and insolent rebel. Scott stood over him with concern and frustration written in the line of his brow. Ethan waited farther back, teeth bared in barely concealed rage.

"Peter didn't kill Aidan," Stiles told them. "I can tell when he lies to me."

"How?" Scott asked.

"I just feel it."

"He still killed someone," Scott argued, motioning toward Peter.

"He did," Stiles agreed. "But Aidan wasn't an alpha anymore. It wasn't him."

"Derek," Ethan said. "Is Stiles telling the truth?"

"Yes," Derek answered.

"How does he know?"

"Stiles used to be bonded to Peter."

"But now he's bonded to you."

Derek shrugged because he didn't understand it either.

Stiles said, "It's supernatural. Whatever's left of the bond I had with Peter is getting stronger, but I'm a shit psychic. I can't cause that."

"So there's something else too?" Scott asked.

"I wasn't an alpha before," Peter pointed out. "Does that matter?"

"I don't know. There's too much we don't know." Stiles scowled. "But usually when I do psychic shit, it's Watchtower-related. We can't rule out that Dorian did something, or that someone else is here, including one of Haha, No's agents."

"I should have thought of that." Peter sounded annoyed.

Scott held Stiles' eyes for a moment before turning to Derek. When Derek nodded, Scott turned back to Peter, pointing to Stiles and Derek. "They are the only reason we're letting you stay at all. Don't make me regret it."

Peter rolled his eyes.

Stiles laughed.

"Are you _trying_ to prove I can't trust you?" Ethan growled.

"No," Peter answered calmly. "I just don't care."

"It'll be fine," Stiles said.

"I don't trust you either," Ethan snapped.

Stiles shrugged. "I also don't care."

"His brother is dead," Scott reminded them with a growl.

Peter spread his arms. "And I'm here to help. Not to make friends."

_It's different_ _from our bond,_ Derek noted.

Stiles nodded. Even his original bond with Peter had been different from either of his bonds with Derek, but this was inconsistent in a way none of the Watchtower-forged bonds had been.

Derek pulled Stiles from the room as the others continued to pretend they would argue rather than let Peter sink his claws into the back of Ethan's neck.

 _They don't need you for this,_ Derek assured him. _I want to talk to you._

For several months now, something had weighed on Derek's thoughts. Stiles hadn't pressed because he'd known Derek didn’t want to share.

_What would you do if something happened to me?_ Derek asked once they were secure in Stiles' room.

_Kill whoever killed you,_ Stiles answered without hesitation.

_I mean after that,_ Derek pressed. _Would your whole life be killing?_

 _I don't know._ Stiles would continue to fight Watchtower, but he got the feeling that wasn't what Derek meant.

_Neither do I, and that worries me. We don't have lives, just reactions to things around us._

Reactions to Watchtower, most of all.

Stiles pulled Derek forward so he could wrap his arms around him. _If something happens to_ me _, I expect you to go to college for your boring history degree._

 _I don't even know what to tell you to do._ Derek clung to Stiles. _You have to live too._

Stiles frowned. _I guess... if it doesn't work the first time, I'll stop trying to revive you._

_And then what?_

_I'll stock an entire cabinet with Butterfingers and black licorice because I'll finally be free of your irrational hatred for both._

_I'm serious, Stiles._

_I know._ _Sorry._ Stiles didn't know what he'd do without Derek. _If Watchtower isn't done, I'd keep fighting. I'd still get coffee with Gregson and watch movies with Scott._

Derek nodded his approval. _I need you to know that I would want you to be happy, even if it meant loving or bonding someone else._

Stiles frowned. _Why are we talking about this, Derek? Why has it been bothering you? Neither of us is dying._

 _Not now, but we could._ Derek took hold of Stiles' hand and squeezed it gently. _I've been jealous and violent before, and that's not what I want you to remember if you ever need to move on._

_Are you planning on dying soon?_

_I've just been thinking about the future. We haven't planned for it, and since we're at war, Stiles, death is something that may find us whether we like it or not._

Stiles lifted Derek's hand so he could kiss his fingers. _I don't care how many of them there are. We're stronger than they are._

 _That's not what I mean,_ Derek insisted. _If I'm gone, the only thing I want you to think about when you wonder what I'd want you to do is to remember that I want you to be happy, however that happens and whoever it happens with._

_I promise,_ Stiles thought, _but you have to promise the same._

_I do._

Stiles grabbed Derek's other hand and looked him in the eye as he thought, _Good, now why the hell are you obliquely telling me I can_ _have Peter when you're gone?_

Derek jerked back like he'd been slapped.

_I chose you,_ Stiles reminded him. _If this is about the bond, you already pointed out it's different._

Derek shook his head. _It's about how I acted before. That jealous_ _, angry man isn’t a person I want to be._

Peter himself was incidental.

 _We're past that. It's okay._ Stiles had been as bad as Derek, worse even.

_No,_ Derek insisted. _I made you wait for me to forgive you, but you never got the same chance._

 _I'm the one who severed the bond,_ Stiles reminded him.

_That's not the same._

Ethan screamed.

Stiles scrambled back to the living room with Derek half carrying him down the stairs.

Ethan writhed on a chair as Peter and Scott held him in place with Peter's claws still in his neck.

"I can't find Aidan," Peter grunted.

"He woke up by the body," Scott said. "He has to be there."

"They were in the woods. His missing memory is in the city." Peter spoke through clenched teeth.

"So they were staged together after-the-fact," Stiles suggested.

"Find who took his memory," Scott ordered.

Peter's eyes had already been glowing, but the red burned brighter. "Kate's here."

"Can werejaguars take memories?" Scott asked.

Peter pulled his claws from Ethan's neck and flexed his fingers. "I don't know, but she wasn't alone. Someone worked with her to separate the twins."

Stiles took Derek's hand and squeezed. Derek returned the pressure but wasn't as shaken as he would have once been.

"Two old enemies in as many days," Derek observed.

Scott nodded. "We'll have to fight back."

Stiles corrected him, “We’ll have to end it.”

They were trying not to look at Stiles, all except Peter, who watched him wearing a wild grin.

**.x.**

Stiles waited until Derek left with Scott before letting himself even think about Haha, No. Peter still sat in the living room in awkward silence with Noah and Ethan, each convinced he was watching over the others for either safety or to keep them away from Kate. Scott thought he could keep anyone from murdering her again. Stiles suspected Chris Argent would do it himself in the end.

"Stimulating as this conversation is," Stiles said into the silence, "I think I'd rather eat my fucking cane than sit here with you all glaring at each other."

He made his way to his room, waving both Peter and Noah off when each tried to stand. Whether they meant to help or join him, Stiles didn't bother to ask.

In his room, Stiles pulled out his phone and ran his fingers along the red edge of the case. They'd never given Haha, No's number to Rafael McCall. There was a lot about Haha, No they never shared to keep Stiles from being implicated. Stiles didn't mind. He wanted to take out Haha, No himself.

He should have given that up. It didn't stick the last time he killed Haha, No, and the FBI had more resources than Stiles. He'd been more emotional than logical. Greedy and vengeful. That didn't make him want to slash Haha, No's throat any less.

Stiles dialed Haha, No's phone number. He'd probably changed it, gotten rid of it to hide his location.

"Hello, Joker," Haha, No answered, and Stiles' breath caught. "I was beginning to think you'd never call."

_What are you doing?_ Derek thought.

_Focus on finding Kate,_ Stiles answered before shutting him out. He'd hoped Derek would be too distracted to notice anything was wrong with Stiles.

"Are you going to say anything or just mouth breathe at me all night?" Haha, No asked.

"Brenna Dorian is here," Stiles said.

Haha, No laughed. "It was foolish of her to go after Lorrain."

"You did."

"I sacrificed someone else to that failed ambition."

Nike had been handed over to the FBI after the pack captured her. Stiles should have realized she was only the first to come after Dumbo but had assumed, as he always seemed to, that Haha, No was unique.

Stiles asked, "Can you still fight Yukio with Dorian ignoring him?"

"Can you?"

Stiles could hear the smirk on Haha, No's lips.

"You know nothing can kill me," Stiles boasted, hoping it was enough to distract Haha, No.

"Did you think the concept of Yukio would scare me, Joker?"

"I called to ask if it's possible to bond more than one partner."

"I've seen it." He drew the short words out, stringing Stiles along.

"How? When?"

"What do I get if I share?"

"My eternal hatred, but with sprinkles." Stiles sneered. He didn't have to fake a grin if no one could see his face.

"I want to know the weight limit for your telekinetic ability."

"Fine," Stiles spat. "You first."

"One was two wolves who bonded a human witch simultaneously. The wolves bonded each other fully as well."

"I'm already bonded."

"There's more. My payment first."

"Sometimes it's around eighty pounds, others nearer three hundred."

"What makes the difference?" Haha, No asked.

"Your turn."

"One of our remixes shared a residual bond with her former partner."

"How?"

"No, you go now," Haha, No reminded him.

"Pain."

"Watchtower isn't the bond's natural habitat. Our bonds break because we're fully severed from old partners, but she was neighbors with her former partner for a while after bonding the new one. They renewed their friendship, and with it, something of their connection."

"Is it even meant to be one-on-one?" Stiles asked.

"You remember Mirabelle and—"

Stiles lost whatever Haha, No said when Derek crashed into the room with a roar.

"What were you thinking?" Derek snatched the phone from Stiles and hung up.

"That he has more information than we do." Stiles crossed his arms. It had been going well as far as he was concerned.

Behind Derek, Peter stood in the hall with Scott. Stiles wondered if they had listened in. Peter wasn't smirking now.

"He's not a friend you just call up with a question," Derek growled.

"It's not like we're hiding. He knows where we are. They all do."

Derek rumbled with anger and disappointment.

"What if there was a way to trace that?" Scott asked. "And we missed our chance."

Stiles winced. "I could call again."

"You need to plan these things with us," Scott said.

Stiles nodded and hoped they took it for an apology. He couldn't have talked about the power from his club talisman with the FBI or police listening.

_You know how he thinks, but that helps you more to work with him than against him,_ Derek warned.

_I've beaten him before,_ Stiles reminded him.

_He doesn't seem beaten to me._

"I'll do better," Stiles promised.

Scott's eyes widened in surprise, so Stiles stuck out his tongue at him.

Stiles passed Scott and Derek to ask Peter, "Did you hear any of that?"

Peter nodded.

"I think you're safe from him." Their bond was acting up because of their friendship, though that didn't explain why it had taken so long or why it was growing stronger.

"Only as safe as you," Peter mused.

**.x.**

Stiles sipped at his macchiato and watched Lydia glare at the café door. She had arrived in town only this morning but insisted on joining him. Derek's arm rested over Stiles' shoulders, and while he looked calm, Stiles could feel Derek's anxiety through their bond.

_He won't hurt me,_ Stiles assured him. _He's a bastard, but he's not an idiot._

Derek raised one eyebrow briefly.

"He's not coming," Lydia said.

"We didn't expect him to," Stiles reminded her.

She arched an eyebrow at him, somehow more elegantly than Derek had.

"You know we can handle being stood up without you," Stiles added.

"You should rest before the service," Derek agreed.

Ethan was the only family Aidan left behind, but Scott insisted on arranging a funeral for him.

"I can rest afterward just as easily."

"I thought you were day-tripping." Stiles said. "You have classes."

"I can't just go to class when my friends are in danger." Lydia finally pulled her eyes from the door.

"I mean, you're the one trying to convince us of the importance of education." Stiles tipped his drink at her.

"You can be a real jerk, Stiles." Lydia glared only a moment longer before turning back to the door though.

Hayden entered the café and made a beeline for their table. Her brows furrowed over deep brown eyes, but in concern more than anger.

As she dropped into the chair Stiles had left for Theo, Hayden said, "He's not coming."

Stiles set a hand to his chest as if aghast. "Why ever not?"

Hayden answered with a flat stare.

"I am shocked, I tell you," Stiles continued unconvincingly. "Shocked."

"That woman came to us," Hayden said. "She tried to recruit us to fight against you."

"And?"

"When she left, Theo took Corey and Tracy to follow her. Josh hadn’t arrived yet, and I stayed behind to fill him in. We only know what Theo told us. He said she attacked your friend, but when the alpha got involved, he lost track of the woman."

Stiles nodded. "Her name is Brenna Dorian. She's a board member of Watchtower who accepted the bite to become a werewolf. And Dumbo's not my friend. He's more like an employee."

Hayden raised her eyebrows, clearly doubting the distinction. "Theo is trying to find her again, which is why he doesn't have time for you."

"Then why do you?" Lydia asked.

Hayden frowned. "We're keeping the pieces of something apart. Theo thinks it was the real reason she came to us, but I have no idea how she could even know we have it."

"What is it?" Stiles asked.

"I'm definitely not telling you that."

"It could be important," he pressed.

"It is."

Stiles pouted, but Hayden didn't waver.

Lydia said, "We're stronger together. We proved that when we fought together before."

"The more people who know a secret, the harder it is to keep.” Hayden shook her head with a little sigh. “And Theo ordered me not to tell."

Stiles made a face at that, earning him a glare.

"He's my alpha," Hayden reminded them.

"Is he a good alpha?" Stiles asked.

"He's my alpha," Hayden repeated, more intensely this time. "I'm grateful to you for helping us, but you're not my pack."

Lydia asked, "Do you know what I can do?"

Hayden nodded.

"I've been hearing bears. I can't pinpoint one person they're after, so I think they're a danger to everyone. Warn your pack, and be careful."

"I will. Thank you, Lydia." Hayden stood and left the café.

When she was gone, Derek asked, "You think he's forcing them to stay with him?"

Stiles half shrugged since Derek's arm weighed down his shoulders too much for a full one. "I don't know. Something just seems off about them."

"They're not real werewolves," Derek reminded him.

"Are you saying you got the feeling she _likes_ Theo?"

Derek shook his head. Stiles already knew he hadn't.

"At this point, we can't save Hayden unless she wants to be saved," Lydia said. "From Theo, anyway. Dorian may target them for turning her down and to get whatever they're carrying."

Peter walked over, from where he must have been hiding because he definitely hadn't come through the door in the last half hour, and took the seat Hayden had vacated.

"Bears?" he asked Lydia.

She gave him a chilly glare.

"Berserkers wear the bones of bears," Peter reminded them. "Kate controls berserkers. The odds that she used them to separate the twins are high, though I couldn’t see it for certain."

"I should have realized that," Stiles groaned, "especially after we knew Kate was back."

Derek patted his arm but didn't say otherwise.

"I need to go get ready," Lydia told Stiles and Derek. She stood and left them with Peter.

"How long were you creeping here?" Stiles asked Peter. "And where?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. I sat at a table, openly drinking a cappuccino, just like everyone else." Peter smirked, tapping his fingers against the table like he couldn't bear to stay still. He had painted his fingernails black. Stiles resisted the urge to ask why.

"Around the corner," Derek said, "at one of only two tables we can't see from this one." He pointed.

Stiles made a face in that general direction.

_I didn't want to distract you,_ Derek thought to Stiles by way of apology. _Or Lydia._

Peter glanced out the window to where Lydia was climbing into her car. "Banshees tend to have a hard time psychologically, only partially because most assume their premonitions are hallucinations."

"Lydia will be fine," Stiles said. "She knows what she is, and so do the people around her. Most banshees don't have that."

Peter shrugged.

Derek scowled. "What do you want, Peter?"

Peter narrowed his eyes, and Stiles felt him fabricating a lie to annoy Derek.

"The truth, Peter," Stiles said.

Peter sighed, pulling a cell phone from his pocket which he set on the table. The screen was cracked, but otherwise nothing about it stood out. It's case was plain black, and while it wasn't very old, it wasn't the newest model either. Stiles raised his eyebrows and waited for Peter to explain.

"This is Brenna Dorian's personal cell phone," Peter said.

"Why do you have it?" Derek asked.

"I knocked it off her during the fight, but it took a little time to find." Peter grinned, leaning forward.

Derek bristled. He had searched the mall after the fight and never saw a phone.

"Relax, nephew. Her last call was to Kate."

"They're working together?" Stiles asked. Then he shook his head and asked a more pressing question, "Why didn't you tell us this last night?"

Derek asked over him, "She just left it unlocked?"

Peter tilted his head, regarding them for a moment before he answered. "She used a swipe pattern password and didn't wipe down the screen. It left smudges."

"Wow, Sherlock, I'm impressed," Stiles said with far too little sarcasm to earn the glare Peter directed at him. "Is that what took all night to deduce?"

"I got lucky she wasn’t scrolling through her evil Facebook."

"As opposed to her regular Facebook?"

"No, it's the same thing."

"You're avoiding my other question."

"I wanted to look through it before I told anyone in case you all demanded I hand it over." Peter scowled.

"You're grumpy today," Stiles noted.

"I'm often irritable. You don't notice because Derek's so much worse." He left unsaid that Stiles spent much of his time in a bad mood as well, but Stiles could tell he was thinking it.

"Liar." Stiles rolled his eyes. "What else is on the phone?"

"Not much. She was usually careful. Her texts are vague, and none of her contacts have names."

"Then how do you know she called Kate?"

"Obviously, I know her phone number."

"How is that obvious?" Stiles turned to Derek. "Do you know Kate Argent's phone number?"

Derek shook his head.

Peter rolled his eyes. "I haven't been training in a cave. I've also been working to find Kate, separately from her brother's efforts."

"That part _is_ obvious."

"You're difficult today." Peter frowned.

"I'm always difficult. You don't notice because you keep leaving town."

"Are you still mad at me?"

Stiles crossed his arms and glared.

"For being gone or for not calling you?"

Stiles maintained his glare even though he wasn't really sure.

"For acting like I need to protect you?"

"Are you guessing randomly?" Derek asked him.

"No." Peter narrowed his eyes at Stiles. "Stiles, are you mad at me, or am I mad at me?"

Stiles faltered.

"Psychic bleed isn't a good sign," Derek said, slowly enough to mentally run through several things it could be a sign of before he finished the sentence.

“We could both be mad separately,” Peter said.

"I..." Stiles bit at his lip before continuing. "I've been thinking out of pattern sometimes."

"Am I supposed to understand what that means?" Peter asked. "I must have gotten different psychic torture lessons than you two."

Derek's eyebrows lowered. He didn't believe Peter. Stiles tried to check but couldn't get a read on Peter.

Instead, Stiles considered the thoughts that had felt foreign. They were rare, so isolated that until this moment, he hadn't thought of them as a pattern, but they'd started not long after Peter left. The most recent one had rebuked his lack of empathy for Ethan.

"Peter, are you upset that you're sort of a psychopath?"

Peter rolled his eyes. "I'm not a psychopath. We were in the middle of an important discussion. Kate could have used Dorian to separate the twins as easily as her berserkers. Or both."

"This is important too," Stiles said. "Is it Malia? Do you feel guilty that you don't love your daughter more?"

"I _do_ love her. I just don't know her."

"Which you might have remedied by staying in town," Stiles reminded him.

Peter shook his head. "It looks like Kate and Dorian sometimes arranged meetings by text. We should be able to lure Kate out."

"Did they text anything about Dumbo?" Stiles asked.

"They were carefully vague," Peter answered.

Derek said, "We should hand over the phone."

"And give up a chance to kill Kate ourselves?" Peter's grin turned wicked. "I intend to correct the mistake I made last time I killed her."

"Is that why you left to hunt down an alpha?" Derek asked.

Surprise. Peter's. He thought Derek knew.

"No," Peter answered, "though I won't say I mind."

Doubt. Derek's.

With a frown and a thought, Stiles explained, _He's telling the truth. He left because of me._

Derek reached across Stiles' shoulders to turn him and glare directly into his eyes with eyebrows furrowed low over his own. He didn't even have to ask. Stiles felt the question.

_There was no reason to tell you. He said he needed to be strong enough to protect me, and I told him he didn't._ And Derek never asked or bothered to look, else Stiles could never have kept it from him.

_You left it out on purpose._

_He was being stupid._

Derek sighed. Aloud, he asked Peter, "If you left for power to protect Stiles, why didn't you come back?"

"I did. Yesterday."

Derek glowered.

"Stiles is protected, and I did more than find and kill a random alpha." Peter narrowed his eyes. "Can you honestly say you'd have preferred to have me around?"

Derek didn't answer so much as stare through Peter like a solid enough glare would turn him to stone and rid Derek of him once and for all.

_"I_ would," Stiles pointed out.

"I can endeavor to spend more time around Stiles if that's what you think it will take to keep him safe," Peter added smugly.

"Don't ignore me, and don't fuck with him just for the hell of it," Stiles said over Derek's low growl.

"But it's so easy."

"Only because you're deflecting from your own emotional trouble," Stiles countered.

Peter frowned at that.

"If it's infecting me, it must be a big deal," Stiles said.

"I’m not _infecting_ you."

"I feel incredibly ill every time I accidentally think one of your thoughts for you."

"That's not how it works, and they aren’t mine."

"You don't know how it works. Derek's the expert."

"Dimitri's the expert."

Stiles grimaced, finally convinced to change the subject again. "Have you spoken to Scott about how you're an alpha again?"

Peter sneered with an undercurrent of discomfort rather than contempt. "Yes."

"Don't throw a fit. You had to know it was coming," Stiles said.

Peter glared, though it bordered on a pout.

**.x.**

Most of the pack came to Aidan's funeral. Isaac didn't. Stiles sat near the back with Peter, giving everyone space to mourn.

Derek stuck to Ethan's side for most of it.

Lydia said a few words, clearly near tears, though her voice never wavered.

Scott tried to match her but barely kept his eyes from shining red. They flashed, just once, but he ducked his head. Stiles only saw their light as it reflected off the face of his watch when he pretended to rub tears from his eyes. Or, didn't pretend since the tears were real. He just might have let them flow otherwise.

Ethan grew angry as he spoke, reading off a folded sheet of notebook paper held in shaking hands, but he never said outright that he wouldn't rest until he found his twin's killer. He didn't have to.

Aidan had been cremated, and Ethan refused to let Aidan's urn out of his sight. He carried it with him through the small reception Lydia had planned. It might have been awkward eating while holding his twin's ashes, but Ethan wouldn't eat. He wouldn't sit. Lydia barely convinced him to stay, and then only because Danny had flown in for the service too, and he helped her block the door.

Stiles sat in a corner, shoving tiny sandwiches and cookies into his mouth while he watched. Derek sat beside him, having passed stewardship of Ethan to Lydia and Danny for the moment. He sipped at a paper cup of black coffee and watched the room even more avidly than Stiles.

_Do you really think they'll attack a funeral?_ Stiles asked.

Derek spared a brief moment to be thankful Stiles hadn't tried to ask it around all the food in his mouth. _They might. That's enough._

Derek wasn't the only one watching the exits. Cat kept wandering in and out, clearly patrolling. She hadn't known Aidan as long as most of the pack, but since she liked to spend more time in the woods than in town, Stiles knew she'd met up with the twins a few times on Scott's behalf. He didn't know if they'd ever become friends, but he saw her set her hand on Ethan's shoulder once for just a moment before he nodded. Then she stepped out for another sweep.

Stiles knew he didn't keep up with people, had known for some time now, but this was the first time it bothered him. Technically, Aidan had been pack. That should have made him family, like an asshole cousin he didn't want to spend time with but had to entertain at family reunions. If nothing else, someone he should still mourn.

Allison sat across from Stiles with her back to the door. "Will you two stop glaring at everyone?"

"We're glaring at the imminent danger that only our eyebrows can keep at bay," Stiles grumbled.

Allison shook her head. "We're keeping an eye out. You're not supposed to worry about security."

"I always worry."

"You're not supposed to fight," she corrected herself.

Stiles glowered at that. "I cancelled today's physical therapy appointment, so maybe I need the exercise."

Allison sighed. "Just for one day, please only say things you mean."

She didn't wait for his response before leaving to talk with Malia.

"It doesn't have to be a whole day," Derek said over his coffee. "This will be over within the hour."

"Does that mean we're spending the rest of the day alone?"

Derek looked surprised. Normally he didn't even need to read Stiles' thoughts to predict them.

"You don't want to?" Derek asked slowly.

"I've been doing pack wrong."

"That's not a real sentence."

"Don't be pedantic." Stiles nibbled at another cookie. "Gregson keeps harping on about how I don't care about anyone at all but, like, myself and you, and she's right, and I wasn't sure why it mattered, but at this point all the stories people would tell about me at my funeral would be about times I was mean to them that are only funny in hindsight. Except Allison, who can talk about shooting me full of arrows to make everyone else jealous. And if you look very carefully, I made that whole thing about me again."

Derek's eyes widened further, and his mind shoved its way into Stiles'. It wasn't rough, Derek had too much skill for that, but it was sudden and overwhelming. It felt a little bit like Derek had thoroughly licked his fingers, except that it was his brain.

"Peter's not the source of the psychic bleed," Derek said. "Maybe it's you. Could be some sort of feedback loop."

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"Stiles, you have severe emotional issues. We pretty much all do. But I think you’re—"

“Are you accusing me of having feelings?”

“Technically, I’m accusing you of caring when you don’t.”

“And you think my own disappointment in myself is circling around back at me?”

“I’m guessing. If you have a better theory, let me know.”

“Hypothesis.”

“Now who’s being pedantic?”

“But you still think it’s going through Peter.”

“We know it’s not from me.”

"Well why wouldn’t my ‘caring’ affect you too?"

"I know it's hard to believe, but I'm not as stunted as you and my uncle."

"Harsh. Probably still true."

"It is."

"It feels extra harsh because you used to live in an abandoned house and then in an abandoned train station."

"I did."

"What you mean is more that Peter wouldn't have changed any more without a jumpstart, but you have been working on yourself for a while now."

"Yes."

"Then what's different about me?"

"Ask yourself." Derek turned back to the door.

"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking you."

"I know. Take your time."

Stiles scowled at his cookie, but when the reception was over, and the others made plans to meet on the preserve at what Ethan said had been Aidan's favorite spot, Stiles and Derek went too.


	2. There Are Choices Here

Stiles always felt out of place in Gregson and Dumbo's apartment. Last he knew, it had been only Gregson’s apartment, but she would never have selected the cartoon placemats on the table herself. That, and Dumbo’s laundry sat in a hamper by the door, either ready to be washed or needing to be folded. Stiles didn’t sniff it to find out which.

Gregson brought Stiles a glass of iced tea while Dumbo made faces at him.

_Are you sure you don't need me?_ Derek asked from where he waited outside in the new Camaro that he claimed Stiles wasn’t well enough to drive even though he knew for a fact it was easier to handle than the Jeep, if only because it wasn’t actively dying.

_I can do this,_ Stiles promised to himself as much as Derek.

"I know I'm an asshole," Stiles started. "I've known for a while."

"So has everyone," Dumbo agreed.

Stiles nodded because there wasn't much else he could do. "I want to be better," he said. "I haven't wanted that for a long time, maybe ever. But that makes this a lot harder."

"Sir, something's wrong, isn't it?" Gregson asked as she sat between him and Dumbo on the couch.

Dumbo leaned forward to study Stiles around Gregson.

Stiles nodded. "I figured out how to find Haha, No."

He'd been thinking over it for months, desperate to track him down, coming up with plan after plan, each more foolish than the last. This one was more dangerous than most, and the first one he'd thought might work.

"That's... good?" Gregson spoke hesitantly. She knew him well enough to know his plan would be cruel.

"I can lure him out, or one of his agents more likely, and follow them back to him."

"Unlikely," Dumbo said. "I'm the most valuable thing you have, and he gave up on me after losing Nike. He wouldn't be foolish enough to try anything like that again, or to let you track anyone back to him." Dumbo paused, frowned. “Because I’m a long-lost prince, as we all know.”

"Something about me is special to him," Stiles said. "Some mix of how I remind him of himself and how I responded to their experiments."

"If he was coming after you, he would have," Dumbo argued. "He's biding his time."

Stiles nodded. "But we have something that could give him power over me, maybe more than he's ever had."

"No." Dumbo refused without hesitation.

Gregson took a moment longer before lifting one hand to the cheek below her glass eye.

"It's too dangerous," Dumbo insisted.

"Trick warned you," Gregson told Stiles. "This can be used against you. We can't let Sorokin have it."

"I didn't mean to him," Dumbo growled.

"That's why I can't be the one to follow the eye back to him after he steals it," Stiles explained. "But Trick assured me it couldn't be used against you. Otherwise, we never would have made it."

"It's not your eye to gamble with, Stiles." Dumbo bared his teeth. Stiles hadn't seen him this angry since he interrogated Nike. At least he could believe Dumbo cared about Gregson. Apparently, it was better than Stiles could do.

"I want to talk with Trick first," Gregson said. "And we'll need some sort of tracker, maybe more than one since signals can be blocked."

Stiles nodded. "I'll ask Deaton about that and move on from there. I want your approval before we move forward with this."

"Sara, don't," Dumbo warned.

"It's not your eye either, Eddie," she reminded him. Then she turned back to Stiles. "This might not work. It might get you killed or worse."

"I know."

"It might do the same to me."

"I know."

She studied Stiles a moment longer before giving him a determined nod.

**.x.**

Stiles brought Scott with him to Deaton's clinic because Deaton liked Scott better, and they needed a favor. Deaton was sweeping when they entered, but at the sight of them, he set the broom aside with a long sigh.

"Hello, Scott. Stiles."

Stiles waved.

"We came for help," Scott said.

Deaton nodded and motioned them to follow him to the back.

"Do you know much about Sara's eye?" Scott asked while Stiles held up the mountain ash barrier for him to pass.

"A little," Deaton answered. "Enough to know they shouldn't have made it."

Scott glanced at Stiles before continuing. "We're going to use it as bait."

"I was under the impression that Trick Montgomery explained blood magic to you," was Deaton's response, which Stiles took to be a bad sign.

"They were vague on the details but insisted it could be very bad," Stiles said.

Scott shot him another, sharper, glance. They had agreed Stiles should speak as little as possible.

"We don't plan on letting him use it against Stiles. We'll track it back to him and attack before he can use it."

"You're looking for a tracking spell."

Scott nodded. Stiles tried not to look eager or bored.

"I'm a veterinarian," Deaton reminded them.

"Does that mean you don't know any spells?" Stiles asked.

Scott stomped on Stiles' foot. Deaton raised an eyebrow.

After a moment, Deaton said, "I don't use spells. I study properties inherent in various substances and their possible applications."

Stiles resisted, barely, saying that sounded like magic to him. It must have shown on his face anyway because Deaton sighed again, and Scott elbowed Stiles.

"I'm not performing or channeling magic, just setting the process in motion," Deaton explained. "That's the difference."

Scott asked, "Do you know anything that can help us track something? Something that emits a radio signal or a strong scent or..." He lifted his hands at a loss for other examples.

Deaton leveled a discerning stare at Stiles for several seconds before turning it on Scott. "Don't you think there are others I could have found if I did?"

"You didn't have a chance to mark them," Scott pointed out. "I think."

"I could have had you mark the alpha and followed the trail back to Peter Hale."

"Oh, damn," Stiles muttered.

Scott sighed. "I'm sorry for bothering you."

"A visit from you is never a bother." Deaton gave Scott a warm, fatherly smile that chilled the moment he turned to Stiles. "But you know better, Stiles. You cannot learn what I have to teach."

"You just said it's information, not power."

"Information is power."

"What is it you're afraid I'll do?"

"Only what you've already done."

Stiles did his best to say, "????" with his face. It would have been easy with Derek.

"Your nature is too chaotic. You act before you think and pursue paths calmer minds advise against."

"Ohhh, you mean how I got magic."

“You lack balance, Stiles, to such a degree I can hardly imagine you regaining it.”

“So I had balance once?”

Scott set a hand on Stiles' shoulder. "We should go."

"I mean, I guess."

Scott turned back to Deaton. "Please let me know if you think of anything that could help."

Once Deaton nodded, Scott turned away, pulling Stiles out of the clinic into the street.

"You're still really bad at being quiet."

"At least it's not a new flaw. I've got those too."

Scott shook his head. "We'll keep trying. This plan is risky though. Maybe it’s better if we think of something else."

"If nothing else, we can combine werewolf super-senses with hunter tracking techniques to follow the thief normally."

"If the thief moves normally."

"Shit." Stiles frowned, tapping his chin for theatricality since, given his lack of suggestions, Scott would have no other way to know he was thinking.

"You seem like you've been doing well," Scott said. "Sometimes."

"I get grouchy on bad knee days, I know."

Scott chuckled. "At least you know."

Stiles had the beginning of an idea. "I can track Derek, and Peter sometimes."

"Isn't that the way Sorokin's most likely to block?"

"Maybe." Stiles pouted. "I'm just brainstorming."

"Let's brainstorm on the way back home."

"Or," Stiles held up a hand, "we could brainstorm on our way to get dinner."

"I have plans with my mom tonight. You can come too if you want."

"Tempting, but she seems put out when I impose on family time."

"You noticed?"

"If I didn’t notice when I annoyed people, how could I keep it up so long?"

"I thought you were just like that."

"I mean, I _am_ just like that, but it suits my nefarious purposes as well."

Scott laughed, almost more through his nose than his mouth. "I'll drop you off."

**.x.**

Stiles knew Derek was at the Stilinski home, but Peter surprised him. He sat in Noah's chair, head lolling back and eyes wide. For a moment, Stiles worried something was wrong, but then Peter met his eyes, sat upright, and smirked. He had only been bored, staring at the ceiling while he waited.

Derek was out back in the garden, avoiding Peter only as much as usual.

"I hit a wrinkle in my plan to lure Kate out," Peter said.

Stiles held his hands up and waited.

"Brenna Dorian got away, which means Kate knows Dorian lost her phone."

Stiles groaned.

Peter pulled Dorian's phone from his pocket and wiggled it back and forth. "So this is useless."

"To us," Stiles agreed. "We can give it to my dad, and he can send it to Scott's dad, and we can hope they have some use for it."

"Feels like wasted effort."

"Then be less wasteful." Stiles couldn't quite say it seriously, and a grin broke through his feigned scowl.

Peter glared down his nose at Stiles for a long moment before he broke into a fresh smirk.

"We could always let them ambush us," Stiles suggested. "Pretend we never saw the flaw in your plan, impersonate Dorian, and then plan to fight them both."

"It's not an ambush if we're ready for it."

"If we're planning an ambush, and they're planning to ambush us instead, but we plan for that and ambush them while they're ambushing us while we're ambushing them, who gets ambushed?"

"Don't say that word again, ever."

"Ambush?"

Peter groaned but without conviction.

"We'd need more help," Stiles pointed out. "You, Theo, and Dumbo couldn't take Dorian together, and I don't think we can count on them showing without berserkers or Watchtower troops."

"Theo kept fighting me, and Dumbo didn't fight."

"Did Tracy?"

"Not really. She and the invisible boy covered Theo's retreat, even when he wasn't retreating."

"I think it's still enough that you couldn't take her alone."

"Because I was trying to take her alive while fighting Theo," Peter whined. "Killing her would have been easy."

Stiles shook his head. "Because your control isn't fine enough, right?"

Peter flinched.

"Did you think I wouldn't notice?"

"I'd hoped you wouldn't care."

"This isn't your first time. I'm not convinced you were in control then either."

"I was insane," Peter agreed. "I'm better now."

"Then why aren't you in control?"

"I am, for the most part. It's... imagine driving a car. The faster you drive, the more intensely small movements to the wheel impact your direction. The speed limit is designed to keep you from going faster than the path of the street and controls of the car are suited for. But I'm not some commuter driving placidly along. I'm moving much faster than the roads are designed for. I won't be hurt if I crash, unlike whomever I hit. I am in constant, desperate control, but even small mistakes could be catastrophic for the people around me."

"How much stronger are you than the last time you were an alpha?"

Peter paused to study Stiles. "We don't have easily measured power levels like your favorite anime characters, but I would estimate several times stronger."

"The alpha you found, the evil one." Stiles bit his lip. "You found one with an evil pack too, didn't you?"

"I did."

"You killed their alpha, took the pack for your own, and then killed each of them for more power."

"I did."

"Was it hard?"

"No."

"Does Scott know?"

"Only you know."

Stiles struggled against the queasy feeling in his gut. He had killed plenty of people himself, not all of them under duress. He was planning to hunt down Haha, No and slaughter him along with his followers. They were evil too, just like the ones Peter had killed. He couldn't judge Peter for only doing what he planned to do himself.

_He did it for power,_ Derek told him. _You're not._

"Correction," Stiles said aloud. "Derek knows too."

"That was fast."

"He thinks very loudly," Derek said as he stepped into the room drying his hands on a kitchen towel. Dirt and grass stained the knees of his work jeans even before today's gardening, but it was fresh enough now even Stiles smelled it on him. Derek liked the smell. He liked to work in the garden when the sun shone, and to sit in the office by the window with a view of his garden when it rained. They'd put a plush chair and side table there so Derek could read and drink warm tea or cocoa.

"You're filthy," Peter said. "Get cleaned up. We're going out."

"Where?" Stiles asked. "I thought the ambush was a bust."

"It’s not the only thing we’re working on. We're going to lunch."

Derek rolled his eyes but left to change. He and Stiles essentially lived out of the house and the loft equally, so they each had everything they needed in both homes, including clean clothes fit for wearing to a restaurant.

While Derek was gone, Peter admitted, “Backup wouldn’t help. I already texted Kate, and it failed. You can keep the phone.”

“Peter!”

Peter didn’t bother to look ashamed and only laughed when Stiles said he should.

**.x.**

Peter drove, and he followed the speed limit. When they reached the restaurant, Peter told the hostess they were meeting someone, and strolled past to approach a table near the corner where a man sat with his back to them.

As soon as Peter took the seat across from him, the man mumbled, "You've got to be kidding me," and Stiles recognized him as Chris Argent.

Argent stood and shook hands with Derek and Stiles but ignored Peter, who remained in the seat he'd claimed anyway.

"You're the contact?" Argent asked Peter once they were all settled.

Peter grinned.

"What are you dragging these two into?"

Peter shook his head. "Me? This is Stiles' plan."

When Argent turned to him, Stiles could only shrug. Peter had told him nothing.

Peter said, "We need a tracker small enough to affix to a glass eye."

"Even a small tracker would be noticeable on a smooth sphere, and I doubt the eye would be safe to wear with it affixed," Argent said.

Stiles scowled. "So that's it? Nothing can work?"

"Did you really believe I could bug and track an eyeball? Even a prosthetic one?"

Stiles glanced at Peter. "I don't know. Did I?"

"Of course not." Peter turned his focus to Argent. "You _are_ a hunter though. Surely you have some ideas for Stiles' hunt."

"For one, he should stop working with you," Argent told Peter.

"No," Stiles snapped. "Next."

"You could mark it with a pheromone and hope no one washes it."

"Better. What else?"

"Do you know any spellcasters?"

"Real ones?"

"What else would I mean?"

"I didn't know they were real. Deaton always goes on about inherent properties of natural substances or whatever. The most exciting he gets is when a spark ignites their inert power."

"I don't know that spellcasters _are_ real, but you could use one." Argent stood. "That's all I have for you for now."

"But Haha, No has shifters who can smell pheromones too."

"I'm a werewolf hunter. You’re after a human." Argent left before Stiles could respond.

Stiles turned his ire on Peter. "Why did you waste our time with this?"

"How should I have known he was useless?"

Stiles buried his face in his hands, and Derek set a hand on Stiles' shoulder.

A waiter came by to take their order. Stiles didn’t care, so Peter ordered for him while Derek rolled his eyes.

When the waiter had left, Derek said, "Maybe we shouldn't give away Sara's eye anyway."

"Haha, No already gave up on Dumbo and knows better than to move against you or me until he is ready to end it, at which point it’ll be too late for us to act."

"And he's done with me," Peter added.

Stiles continued over him, "The eye is all we have for bait."

"We don't need bait," Derek insisted, "if we let the FBI find him."

Peter said, "They clearly can't."

Stiles spoke over him again. "We agreed to fight."

Peter raised his hands in frustration.

Stiles continued, "I'll try Trick next. They've been studying magic for tattoos. Maybe they came across a spell or two."

As he spoke, Stiles texted Trick to ask about tracking spells, though he expected to wait for an answer since they were at work.

Almost immediately, Trick sent, **I'm not a mage, Stiles.**

**Are those real?**

**I refuse to rule anything out.**

**You do sort of do magic.**

**Fuck, and I mean this with the utmost sincerity, you.**

**Um, I have a boyfriend.**

Their text conversation was done, but Trick sent about forty middle finger emojis over the next several minutes and earned Stiles a strange look from the waiter as he set out their drinks. Trick and Stiles had struggled the last time they created a magic tattoo, Stiles’ joker talisman. It started when Trick added bright orange flowers to the design sketch, which Stiles hated. He had asked for a playing card and barbed wire. It was a pain tattoo; he had wanted something harsh.

Trick insisted it was a pain _relief_ tattoo. Maybe pain conversion at most. The flowers remained, but Stiles chose blue roses for their thorns and darker color. Also, he admitted only begrudgingly, they were pretty.

Even once they agreed on the design, Stiles felt the dissonance between their wills as Trick placed the ink in his skin. Stiles wanted power. Trick wanted to protect Stiles. It wasn’t the same. They had both been more than a little surprised the first time Stiles used the talisman to drain pain from Noah after he’d stubbed his toe. Neither Trick nor Stiles had expected the talisman to work after their fumbling attempts to form and imbue it.

Aloud, Stiles only said, "Trick doesn't know any tracking spells either."

Derek smirked at Stiles' phone as it alerted him to another emoji. "I see that."

"All these sidekicks, and not a one can track a single glass eye?" Peter sneered past the question.

"You included," Stiles reminded him.

"Don't group me with them. They can't help, and I just don't want to."

"What the fuck, Peter?"

"If you can track me, maybe I can track Dimitri, but it's an awful idea."

"Fair point, except, no, you can't."

"Have we tried?"

"No."

"Then it's at least as plausible as giving away your friend's magic eye."

Derek said, "It's too dangerous."

"Why do you think I haven't done it?" Peter asked.

“Don’t bother.” Stiles shook his head. "I doubt it will work, but I'll try having Dad trace a call to Haha, No's phone instead."

Peter mimicked a bow. "By all means. Why haven't you already?"

"I didn't want anyone to know I had his number. Now everyone does."

"And you believe he hasn't since disposed of it?"

"We'll find out."

Peter said, "One more issue with the eyeball plan: it can be used against you."

"I know."

"If you follow, they might find your location through the eye and avoid you. If you don't follow, they might realize it's a trap."

Derek's glower settled into place even before Stiles explained.

"That’s a big point. That, and Haha, No might not act on obvious bait while I’m free to spring the trap on his minions.” Stiles bought a moment’s time by confirming his most recent texts were Trick’s emojis. “Haha, No can't know much about the chimera pack. I’ll ask them to kidnap me."

_"We_ don't know much about them." Peter's expression darkened into a rare mirror of his nephew's.

"Theo's an asshole, but I don't think he's out to kill me." Stiles waved away Peter's concern with an offhand gesture. "If Haha, No uses Gregson's eye, he can see what I see, so what I see has to be useless and convincing."

"All the more reason to try less wild schemes first, and I do say that as a consummate schemer myself."

Stiles would have delivered a witty retort just then, except he couldn’t think of one and the waiter brought their food. That felt much too fast. Did they want to get rid of Stiles? They hadn’t posted a dress code anywhere, but most of the other patrons, Derek and Peter included, were better dressed than Stiles. And no one else had visible tattoos above shoulder level.

Then Peter winked at the waiter, who nodded back in a too familiar way, and Stiles realized Peter had gotten their order rushed. Stiles was just paranoid.

"All your plans are terrible," Derek said, barely waiting to be alone again. "Stiles, I bought you those strategy books."

"You read them too, and they aren't helping you." Stiles shrugged before asking Peter, "You know about magic, right?"

"Don't you think I'd have mentioned it by now if I knew something?"

"No. You're," Stiles motioned vaguely at him, "you."

"Secretive?" Peter asked.

"A liar," Derek suggested.

Stiles ignored both comments. "You came back from the dead, so if nothing else, you have experience vetting magic."

Peter frowned.

"Am I wrong?"

"If I had a tracking spell to give you, you'd try to use it yourself."

"So?"

Peter raised his eyebrows at Stiles' cane where it leaned against the table.

"That's different. We were mid-battle, and monsters attacked me."

"We are at war, and monsters can attack at any moment."

"You're not allowed to be the sensible one, Peter."

"Sure I am. Your whole thing is reckless aggression."

"No, I'm heavily sarcastic."

Derek sighed. "You're both."

"Whose side are you on?"

"Mine."

"Now you sound like Peter."

"We all know I don't."

"Well, I can't use the spell anyway since I have to be kidnapped."

"That's not better."

Stiles stabbed at the fancy pasta he hadn’t bothered to catch the name of without lifting any to eat. He was being childish, even petulant. He should at least try to eat.

Childish? _Petulant?_

_Not me,_ Derek thought.

_Well, I don't care about your feedback hypothesis; it wasn't me either._

Derek tilted his head and furrowed his brow.

"What am I missing?" Peter asked.

"Do _you_ think I'm being childish?" Stiles asked.

"Dangerously, willfully foolish, but I wouldn’t say childish."

Stiles bit at his lip.

"How was that the wrong answer?" Peter asked.

"I had a thought—or a fraction of a thought—that didn't originate with any of us."

"How?"

Stiles shook his head. He didn't know.

_You're better at psychic shit. Can you, like, track it?_ Stiles asked Derek.

_I don't feel anything to follow._

_Did it feel wrong to you when I thought it?_

_I didn't notice. I picked up on your discomfort._

"I'm right here, and at minimum tangentially involved," Peter reminded them.

Derek managed to position his eyebrows in a way that made it clear he didn't care.

"This has been happening for months. I assumed it was you." Stiles pointed to Peter with his fork. "But I also haven't been attacked directly. I know Haha, No has the resources for all kinds of psychic bullshit I don't understand, but this would be too patient, right?”

“If he _can’t_ do more, he might be able to wait,” Peter answered. “You said it’s, ‘a fraction of a thought.’ Maybe it’s not strong enough for whatever he wants, yet.”

“We haven’t found any of his people,” Derek pointed out.

“We didn’t know about Dorian and Kate until after a packmate died. Maybe they’re not the only ones we missed.” Stiles cared not at all for that thought.

“I doubt Kate’s been here long,” Peter said. “Her brother would have found out even if you didn’t.”

“A psychic could be human. There’s not much we could do to find them if they left their partner behind or never had one,” Derek said.

Stiles said, “Sound logic from both of you, but I’m deducting points from Derek for pessimism.”

Derek raised an eyebrow, which Stiles ignored, prompting Derek to say, “We haven’t found Kate or Dorian even though we know they’re here, and they’re both shifters.”

"You now have negative points."

Stiles' phone alarm interrupted Derek's next depressing point.

"I have an appointment," Stiles said as he silenced the alarm. "I need a ride."

"Fine." Peter waved for the bill. "Where to?"

Stiles gave him the gym's address, adding, "You should probably just drop me off. Allison still hates you."

Peter only shrugged, though it seemed stiff.

“At least agree to wait,” Derek asked Stiles on their way out. “We should handle Kate and Dorian first.”

“We may not have the option.” Stiles let Derek help him into the car to make Derek feel better, not because Stiles needed it. “I took my time until now, and I’m as grateful as you that I could. But I refuse to wait so long that he comes for me first again.”

Derek frowned, but neither he nor Peter argued.

**.x.**

Allison waved when she saw Stiles climb out of the car and kept her attention off its driver.

"Listen when she tells you to rest," Derek chastised gently. "You may not have time to recover."

Stiles gave a grudging nod before joining Allison. Peter pulled away without saying whether he was taking Derek home or had more business with him.

_He doesn't need to tell you anything when we can check in telepathically,_ Derek thought.

"You're sure we should be in public with everything going on?" Stiles asked Allison.

"We're in no more danger than you were with them, even without my bow."

Stiles shrugged. It wasn't just that. The gym made him self-conscious, especially when anyone could walk by and wonder why simple things like stepping and pedaling gave him so much trouble.

Allison set a hand on his shoulder. "You can't just stay home."

"I'm not trying to."

"You don't have to hide when you're weak."

"I'm not weak. I have superpowers."

"Everyone is weak sometimes."

She led him inside and gently pressed him toward the locker room. "Change. We can talk while you sweat."

Stiles stuck his tongue at her but obeyed. By the time he left the locker room, Allison had changed too and was waiting for him.

"Have you been doing your stretches?" she asked.

Stiles winced. "Some."

He did stretch his knee. He just also stopped early when it hurt. 

"Well, that's why you have me." She smiled earnestly enough to make Stiles feel guilty.

He only saw his physical therapist once every month or two anymore. He was supposed to put in the work himself. Allison claimed she missed training him and joined him for an appointment so she knew what he needed to do. Stiles couldn’t tell if she lied when she said she wouldn’t miss shooting at him.

Stiles’ right leg took the most damage, but the battle against the Beast and the Dread Doctors left his whole body battered and shredded. Once, he had been a fighter—never the strongest, but strong enough; never the fastest, but, again, fast enough—but he had finally pushed himself too far. Now, the stretches alone left him sore and wishing for a long, hot bath.

“Don’t scowl like that,” Allison chastised, not for the first time.

“I once killed a beast-form werewolf with a _pocket knife.”_

“You weren’t stronger than she was; you were clever. Stop comparing yourself to some idea of what you should be able to do. Look at the progress you’ve made since you were injured. You couldn’t even stand for weeks. Look at where you were last month, and look at you now, frowning at me, with your cane against the wall instead of in your hand. That’s progress, Stiles.”

“I shouldn’t ha…” Stiles shook his head. “When Frankie shredded my leg, I walked it off.”

Rather than answer, Allison pointed him to the bench press, a small enough kindness. Stiles tended to lose steam once she had him working his legs. He lay back as she began adding weights, apparently debating with herself how much he should start with, or buying time to think.

“Same leg?” she asked when she was done.

“Yeah.”

“I know it was crushed in the debris, but could that also have aggravated the old injury?”

“I thought it had healed, but Frankie got me when I was bonded to Peter. That was always a weird one.”

The bond Stiles shared with Derek helped his healing. He suspected the older bond with Peter had done the same, but to a lesser and less consistent extent.

Allison nodded, and tapped a finger on the bar to indicate Stiles should be lifting it rather than resting beneath it as he chatted. Her eyes seemed narrow, though Stiles couldn’t say whether his slacking or mentioning Peter bothered her.

“You don’t get to judge me,” he said, lifting the barbell from its rack. “You like Isaac, and he is the worst.” Stiles remembered Dumbo existed. “Second worst.”

“Does that feel a little light?” Allison asked.

Stiles waited until he’d lifted it a few more times to answer. “Seems normal.”

“I think it’s light. Set it back up.”

“Why do I speak during this?” Stiles mused aloud. “I know I suffer more when I annoy you.”

“You want to suffer. You want to push yourself. And you know no matter how angry I get, I won’t push harder than you can go. Someday, we’ll figure out how to get you to motivate yourself. For now, start again.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You and Isaac would get along if you just talked to each other. You both like comics. And Scott.”

“Is that an exhaustive list?”

“Macchiatos and lacrosse.”

Stiles snickered.

“You both seem to like me hunting you, so long as you don’t actually get shot.”

“Most people like not getting shot.”

“The first part was more my focus there.”

“I didn’t do it for fun any more than I do this for fun.”

“That doesn’t mean you didn’t like it.”

_“You_ liked it.”

“Yes. It was fun.” She leaned over the bar to make sure Stiles saw her smile.

“With Isaac, is it a fun thing or a kinky thing?”

“You know, I think that bar is still a little light.”

Stiles groaned.

When Allison had him on a break drinking a watered-down sports drink, Stiles said, “Oh I forgot to ask if you saw your dad yet.”

“I did, and he called me before you got here. He said you’re hatching ill-conceived schemes.”

Stiles scrunched up his face.

“I told him you wouldn’t dare do anything dangerous without my approval since I’m in charge of your training.”

He scrunched up his face further.

“And that you’re too smart to go through with any plan we hadn’t all examined as a pack.”

“So, basically, you just said, ‘Don’t worry, Dad. He’s afraid of me.’”

Allison flashed a vicious smile she definitely learned from Lydia. “You’d better be.”

Stiles took a drink to avoid saying anything. The bottle was opaque, but he thought it was blue flavor. He preferred the warmer-color flavors, but suffered the whims of those who bothered to pack the drinks, mostly Allison, sometimes Derek.

“I wanted something to be sure it could work, but I’m stuck with mundane werewolf means.”

“Because super-senses never helped anyone track an object.”

“It puts Gregson in danger. I want to be sure she’ll stay safe before we do anything.”

“Have you considered also keeping yourself safe?”

“I mean, yeah, but that never works out, so…”

Allison sighed. “We’ll do everything we can to protect you. I can’t ask more than that you do the same.”

“So all you asked is, ‘everything’?”

“Everything you _can._ Don’t try to do what you can’t.”

“You mean, like, jog. Or walk briskly.”

“Sure.”

Stiles turned away from the flat tone of her voice to glare at his sneakers.

“I’m not trying to annoy you,” he said.

She was quiet.

“I’m just frustrated. I should be able to do so much more.”

“You will do more, but you need time.”

“I don’t think I have time.”

“Take what you can.”

“And when I run out?”

“Make sure they run away because you can’t.”

Stiles laughed.

**.x.**

Stiles pulled up his hood and chewed on it's drawstring. He was used to people staring. There was a spade tattooed on his face and a club carved into his temple; they drew attention, even from the people who didn't recognize him as the sheriff's son who had been through Some Shit. A guy in his twenties walking with a cane got stares too. Staying home was the only way to keep eyes off him.

This was different.

Everyone at the sheriff's station knew him. He'd waited for his dad on this exact bench countless times before, ever since childhood.

Now, everyone at the sheriff's station knew Stiles had contacts in Watchtower and had hidden them from the police.

Noah stepped from his office and paused when he saw his son's fidgeting. He sat beside Stiles on the bench.

"We're ready when you are."

"Dad, he could say things that…”

"He can't hurt you, not today."

"He can implicate me. I… did shit too."

"I know." Noah rubbed Stiles' back, but it didn't calm him. "The others won't be able to hear the call."

"You will."

"Yes."

"Why does anyone have to hear?"

"Stiles, you can't do anything that makes me love you less."

"What if I slaughtered dozens of people and disfigured a couple others?"

"I know that's not hypothetical, son."

“Oh.”

“We both knew this would come up as soon as you suggested this call, and I knew if you were ready to tell me, you’d have done it then.”

“You spoke to Derek.”

“Sara, actually. You’re inside Derek’s head or something.”

“He’s more in mine than I’m in his.”

“You have to understand I don’t know what that means.”

“Sorry, Dad.”

“Are you going to explain it?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Not really.”

“There you go.”

Noah nodded to himself.

“What did Gregson say?”

“You mean, how did she say it?”

Stiles nodded, chewing on his hoodie string again.

“She was sympathetic. You don’t need to worry.”

“I don’t think that’s something I can stop.”

Noah pulled Stiles close with an arm around his shoulders. After a moment, Stiles gave up on digging for more information and hugged his father back.

“I’m ready now,” Stiles said.

Noah led him into the office. Two deputies waited inside, both wearing large headphones. One of them motioned to Stiles’ cell phone where it waited on the sheriff’s desk. The other focused too closely on their equipment to look at Stiles, maybe to avoid looking at Stiles.

Stiles took his phone and the seat they’d left for him with a deep breath. He dialed Haha, No’s number. Noah stood behind him with a hand on Stiles’ shoulder.

“We’re sorry. You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service.”

“Motherfucker,” Stiles snarled.

Noah grabbed his arm in time to stop Stiles from hurling the phone at the wall. With his other hand, Noah tapped his ear to signal the deputies to remove their headphones.

“The number is disconnected. We’re done here,” Noah told them.

He kept hold of Stiles’ arm until they were alone in his office.

“You good?” Noah asked.

“No, but I won’t break my phone.”

Noah released Stiles. “We knew this was a possibility.”

Stiles’ shoulders slumped as he sighed.

When his last call was cut off, Haha, No must have realized what would follow. Stiles wondered briefly if Dumbo’s contact could be traced instead, but he believed Dumbo cared about Gregson. If Dumbo could find Haha, No without endangering her, he would. His belief surprised Stiles. He spent most thoughts about Dumbo in frustration over his lies.

“Sheriff!” The door jerked open as the deputy called. “Reports of gunshots and fire at Eichen House.”

“You can get home?” Noah asked Stiles.

At his son’s nod, Noah hurried out with the deputy.

Stiles had ridden to the station with his dad in part because he’d assumed they’d ride home together so Noah could have an emotional conversation about the dark secrets Haha, No revealed as they used the call to trace him.

_Do you know what’s up at Eichen?_ Stiles asked Derek, interrupting him in the middle of buying Stiles a surprise macchiato and cookie. _Sorry._

_It’s bound to happen. What about Eichen?_

_Shots fired and fire… also fired._

_I’ll pick you up in a few minutes. We’re going home._

_Okay, but what if we went to Eichen instead to make sure Cole and Wight don’t escape._

_Or, we can hold off on the nice ribbon when we present you to our enemies. Let someone else handle this._

_They’re my responsibility._

_They aren’t._

_???_

_Don’t send me punctuation._

_??????_

_We handled them as a pack before, and we will again now. You’re strictly non-combat, and those two will fight, given the chance._

Stiles bared his teeth at the empty room.

_Why do you want to fight them?_

_It doesn’t have to be them. I just want to kick someone’s ass._

_Those violent impulses can’t be healthy._

_You’re one to talk._

_How do you think I recognize them as bad? If you ask very nicely, I’ll take you to the gym, and you can kick your own ass on the bike._

_Why is everyone always mean to me?_

_You’re exaggerating._ Derek picked up his and Stiles’ drinks from the counter and headed out. _And you deserve it._

_You have to pick one._

_I am so nice to you. I buy you cookies and suck your dick._

_Fine, I exaggerated, and you’re practically a saint._

_Not good enough. Now you have to pick one._

_One what?_

_Cookie or blowjob?_

_You are a fucking monster, Derek Hale._

Derek laughed. He had taken to wearing a bluetooth earbud in town to make such outbursts seem mundane, but he was already alone in his car.

_Not sure if you were listening, but the call didn’t go through._

_We’ll find him another way._

Stiles headed out as Derek pulled into the station’s parking lot and waved goodbye to no one in particular as he left. Parrish waved back.

“Can we go to Deaton’s instead?” Stiles asked as he buckled in.

“We should lie low.”

Stiles slouched in his seat.

“Smartass.” But Derek said it with a smile and drove toward the vet clinic.

Stiles finished his cookie and drink before they arrived, though Derek had half of his own cold brew left.

“Are you telling me what we’re here for?” Derek asked after taking a sip from his coffee.

“You may benefit from plausible deniability.”

“Doubt it.”

“Dude, just take what you want to know.”

Derek frowned.

Stiles said, “You don’t care most of the time.”

“You know I do, but I can’t always help it.”

“I don’t mind much. It’s frustrating, but you’re worth it.”

“You’re allowed to mind.”

“Der, it’s fine. I’m used to it now. I do it to you sometimes too.”

He glanced at the clinic door. Stiles couldn't see anything, but Derek heard someone inside with Deaton, talking about their dog’s diet.

“That,” Derek mentally picked at the information Stiles had just pulled from him, “is less invasive than what I do.”

“I’m aware of that, Mr. High-Level Psychic.”

“That’s not—”

“I know, obviously.” Stiles sighed. “Just like we both know that we both know it’s the lack of control that bothers you. You should choose when to slip out of your own mind, and I should have more say over when I share mine. But this is what we’ve got. It’s good enough for me.”

“It’s not for me.”

“Then what do you need? A psychic inhibitor?”

“We don’t have access—”

“But if we did, would you want one?”

“It’s safer to maintain contac—”

“But is that what you want?”

Derek didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

Stiles rubbed the heart tattooed onto his arm, and saw Derek mirror the motion with his own. “We have these talismans, so I can signal you if we need to talk. Then you could turn off the inhibitor, and turn it back on when we’re done.”

“We still don’t have—”

“We can get it. Maybe not immediately, but we can get it.”

“Let me finish a sentence, Stiles.”

“Sure, just did.”

Derek shook his head.

“Also, I’m going to use your needs heartlessly to make Deaton finally help me with _something.”_ Helping Derek might not get him any closer to Haha, No, but finding a way to convince Deaton to cooperate with Stiles might be worth it on its own.

“I know.”

“Do you mind?”

The corner of Derek’s mouth quirked almost into a smile. “It’s frustrating sometimes, but you’re worth it.”  
Stiles leaned over the console to kiss him.

Once Deaton was alone, Stiles and Derek entered the veterinary clinic together. The clean, sharp scent of chemicals and medications hovered like a veneer over the more earthy tones of animals and herbs. Stiles caught a little of it, mostly lysol and dog hair, but Derek shared his senses easily.

“Back already, Stiles?” Deaton asked from behind the counter.

“Do you know anything that can limit psychic connections temporarily? Preferably with an on and off switch.”

Deaton tilted his head, studying Stiles.

“So we can limit Derek’s power and help him figure out how to control it better.”

Deaton turned to Derek, who nodded.

“Now may not be the best time,” Deaton said.

“Later may never come,” Stiles countered.

“Stiles, I told you already that I cannot teach you.”

“Actually, you said I can’t learn.”

“In your case, they amount to the same thing.”

“Then teach someone else.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Is no one worthy of your wondrous gifts?” Stiles widened his eyes in mocking surprise.

“The learning is the beginning of the path.” Deaton’s voice became clipped, almost enough to argue he’d snapped at Stiles. “It’s not an easy path to walk or to step back from when you can go no further. I cannot start someone on the path unprepared, and I absolutely can’t set _you_ on it knowing you care nothing about the consequences of losing your way.”

“So you need someone who wants to be a druid.”

“I need someone who can _maintain balance.”_

Derek took Stiles by the arm and pulled him gently toward the door.

“He’s not helping us. We should go,” Derek said.

“You should,” Deaton agreed.

They did.

**.x.**

“The only way is to follow the thief.” Stiles braced himself for Gregson’s response.

She turned her head to look at Derek, who nodded. He leaned against the wall by the loft’s large window with his arms crossed and his eyes dark with concern. Gregson looked back at her own hand, resting on the arm of Derek's couch, rather than at Stiles. Dumbo took her other hand in his but didn’t speak. One of Gregson’s fingers tapped against the couch. Fidgeting was unlike her.

Finally, she said, “I didn’t expect otherwise.”

“In retrospect, if tracking spells were straightforward and practical, everyone would be using them,” Stiles said. It didn’t make him feel better.

“Do they even exist outside of fiction?”

“Sort of. According to Peter, spellwork isn’t as simple as ‘get bitten, become shapeshifter,’ or ‘close ash circle, keep monster out.’ It influences probability at the lower level, and stronger magic calls on forces that can’t be controlled, only entreated.”

“Does that mean witches are weaker than druids?” Dumbo asked.

“Why?”

“I have my reasons.” Dumbo waggled his eyebrows mock mysteriously.

“This doesn’t change anything for me,” Gregson said. “Does it for you? It’s your blood and power over _you_ that we risk giving them.”

Stiles shook his head. “Allison can track as well as her father. With Derek’s senses backing her skills, whoever Haha, No sends won’t get away.”

“‘Whomever,’ I think,” Dumbo said. “Not one-hundred percent on that one.”

Gregson ignored him to ask Stiles, “How do we make sure Sorokin is the one who comes for it?”

“We send the intel only to him. Dumbo?” Stiles asked.

“I might know a guy who knows a guy.”

Stiles sighed, annoyed, and certain both guys were Dumbo himself.

“He’s secure?” Gregson asked.

“I wouldn’t risk you, Sara.”

She nodded like the word of a liar was enough. “Sir, what if they use the eye before you take Sorokin out, or before it even reaches him?”

“I’ll make sure I don’t see anything important once your eye is gone.”

“Vague, sir.”

“I need to be benched, so I’ll fake a kidnapping. When you see me, do you get sound or thought?”

“It’s visual. Sometimes the context makes more sense to me than it should, but I can’t hear or tell what you’re thinking about it.”

“Good enough. I’ll be able to talk, though someone else will have to call or text for me.”

“Try not to look at people when they speak in case the enemy can read lips.”

“Does it have to be in your face to use it?” Stiles asked.

Gregson paused at that. “I don’t think so, but I’ve never tried.”

“Who is kidnapping you?” Dumbo asked Stiles.

“Satomi refused on the grounds that it might put her pack at risk, so I’m going to ask Theo next.” Which had been his plan from the start, but Derek hated it. “Failing that, just someone whose face Haha, No and his people won’t recognize, maybe a hunter.” Derek hated that too.

“Dangerous,” Dumbo noted cheerfully.

“I can’t let them realize the eye is a trap. This is the price.”

“Bring a plus one to prison,” Dumbo advised.

“I already chose Peter since I need Derek free to communicate through our bond.”

Gregson said, “I’ll start using my old eye and carry this one like a charm. Eddie, have your contact call it a magic token or something instead of a glass eye.”

“A miniature, decorated crystal ball,” Dumbo mused.

“‘Cause you don’t want them pulling it from your eye socket,” Stiles said. “That makes sense. It would be not pleasant at all to have them steal it straight out of your face.”

“Don’t babble, sir. You assumed they would take it from its case at night because you’re not used to being strong enough to attack people in broad daylight.”

“No need to psychoanalyze me.”

“I didn’t. That would hurt more.”

Dumbo giggled.

“Are you mad because my plan is shitty? Someone else can carry the eye. I can carry—”

“You can’t,” Derek reminded him.

Stiles continued, “I can still find someone. Then you won’t be in danger.”

Gregson looked grateful, but in a condescending way. “Danger is what I signed up for. I’m ready for this.”

“I could take it,” Derek offered.

“It’s mine,” Gregson said. “Besides, I’m human; they will believe I’m subdued enough to lose it more easily than you.”

“I can recover from more than you.”

“Not if they think killing you is the best way to get away with my eye. Or if the one who finds you is Kate Argent. I’m doing this.”

Derek nodded. He hadn’t expected her to accept, but he needed to offer.

“Are we not killing the jaguar woman first?” Dumbo asked.

“We can’t find her.” Stiles twitched his shoulders against the waves of justified anger coming off Derek.

“We should wait,” Derek said.

“Waiting might mean I’m locked up for real by Watchtower instead of pretend by a fake enemy of my choosing, and besides, I’ll be safe from Kate and Dorian if I’m under chimera guard.” Stiles tried to hold firm this time, but Derek was so mad at Stiles that now Stiles was getting mad at himself.

“Sir, are you in pain?” Gregson asked.

“Just making horrible life choices.”

To Derek, she said, “You might actually be hurting him.”

“It’s not pain, it’s…” Stiles wasn’t sure how to describe it. “Sort of like vomiting.”

Derek struggled to pull his mind away from Stiles’ enough to offer some relief. “Sorry,” Derek mumbled. “I didn’t mean to…” He shook his head.

_You haven’t been that mad at me in a long time,_ Stiles thought.

_You haven’t had opportunity to be this reckless in a long time._

Derek closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, taking a moment to calm himself.

“There,” Stiles said. “We’re better now.”

Gregson nodded, though she looked unconvinced. Dumbo winked, not that Stiles could imagine why.

“Since I may be hard to reach for a while, we need to work out some Jester-y plans before we put this in motion,” Stiles said. “Dumbo, Gregson said you had some ridiculous, completely unbelievable reason for being worth asking about tactics.”

“Aw, Sara, that’s so sweet,” Dumbo said in a saccharine voice that thankfully returned to his usual smugly amused tone when he addressed Stiles. “Pretty rude of you to imply my years of ghostly possession by an incredible tactician named Hassad, who was completely wasted on hand-to-hand combat in the Watchtower facility where he died by tooth of werewolf, were in any way non-factual or exaggerated.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what Gregson said,” Stiles lied.

Dumbo grinned. “Anyway, it took so long to get him exorcised that I absorbed a bit of his experience.”

“As one does,” was all Stiles could think to say.

“It’s also how I know the problem we’re having right now with the Jesters is that you’ve been out of the fight for over a year. Not all of them ever saw you in action, but those who did have run out of stories to spread.”

“So… morale?”

“Ooh, you’re good at this! Obviously, we can’t just throw you at some enemy troops and hope the story spreads. For one thing, we’re planning to throw you in a hole until Derek finds Haha, No for you.”

“I was imagining more of a basement.”

“So how do we excite them to be Jesters when the Joker is out of play?”

“Make being Jesters cooler?”

“The ad campaign I’ve been working on is really gonna put Jesters in the mainstream.”

“You know that’s not—” Stiles cut himself off with a groan. “I only _have_ a faction by accident. Haha, No made it plain to the guards that I was in training for, I don’t know, management or some bullshit.”

“Close enough,” Gregson said.

Stiles kept talking over her. “And I pulled some unreasonable stunts, especially when he and I sort of took over. I wasn’t in the best place emotionally at the time.”

“Or ever.”

“So I think a lot of it was some people were afraid of me, and some people were like, ‘holy shit, that is fucking sick,’ and in the end decided they hated the actual Watchtower leaders more than whatever the hell I am.”

“‘Fucking sick,’ sir, you _just_ said,” Gregson said with much too straight a face.

Dumbo’s laughter cut off Stiles' next few attempts to speak.

“Anyway, what I’m getting at is that being a Jester just means saying ‘fuck Watchtower’ without actually escaping Watchtower, so maybe we need to make it mean more specifically, _being_ a Jester than just not being anything else.”

It took Dumbo several tries to speak past his own giggles. “You are so bad at saying it, but I think you’re right.”

“I think it’s time we let Watchtower know it’s Jesters who have been fucking with them.”

“And let the Jesters know how much their fellows have been doing too,” Gregson added.

“Please don’t say you want to put out an official evil statement,” Dumbo mock-groaned.

“What? No. Have the Jesters leave fucking playing cards at the scenes of their ‘crimes.’ Maybe write or draw something fun on them. Not… whatever the hell you said.” Stiles shook his head.

“Playing cards? Not just the joker cards?” Dumbo asked.

“Not all of us are rich.” Stiles rolled his eyes. “We could separate the Jesters into four groups and have each one use a different suit though. That doesn’t require buying quite so many decks of cards.”

“It’s also kind of cute.”

Stiles scrunched up his face.

Dumbo grinned. “Which suit do I get?”

Stiles scrunched further and leaned away from Dumbo.

“You don’t know, do you?”

Gregson said, “Sir, if I may interrupt Eddie, do you want Jesters sorted by target or at random?”

Random was tempting, but he didn’t want Jesters on the same job competing against each other because he’d assigned them different teams. “By target, but make sure Setter and Spade are spades. Feels rude not to.”

“You’ll have to decide their orders so we know which target to assign spades to.”

“Oh.” Stiles frowned. “I was going to ask Dumbo that too, wasn’t I?”

“Yukio is strongest,” Dumbo said, “but since he’s been dealing with Dorian all this time, we also know he’s got a defensible set-up. Dorian herself seems on the brink of failure, and also is here. Hunters have hurt Kate’s faction pretty significantly, probably because Chris Argent has been so intent on hunting her down specifically.

“Mortimer has been quieter than the others, buying himself time to recruit mystics and supernaturals. For some reason, they defect at a rate only slightly slower than he recruits them, usually citing what they will soon discover is the work of Jesters. This is even better because the ones with Mortimer have mostly been pulling practical jokes instead of causing actual damage.

“No one’s heard from Keynes or Flynn in a while. Like a long while. Like I think they’re off the table. Probably on an FBI table. Lorrain doesn’t appear to really have troops of his own. They’ve streamed into the other factions, primarily the Jesters. Can’t imagine how. Haha, No is a piece of shit who keeps hunting down our agents. I don’t think it’s possible for him to have a general telepath, but he sure as hell identifies us like he does.”

“That last bit is not good,” Stiles said.

“Yeah, well, we’d have found him by now if it wasn’t the case.”

“I guess I sort of assumed we never got any spies, not that he… found and killed them.”

“You didn’t think about it much is all.”

Stiles nodded. He hadn’t wanted to think about it too much.

Gregson asked, “Do we send our strongest duo against the stronger or weaker opponents?”

“It’s either Yukio because he’s the biggest threat or Dorian because we have the best chance of eliminating her sooner.” Stiles sighed. “But without Dorian, Yukio can act freely, or at least choose his next target. With the Jesters beginning to act openly, it might be us. We should focus efforts against him while he’s still distracted.”

“Spades against Yukio,” Gregson confirmed.

“Also, pranks feel very on-theme. Give orders to also play pranks.” Stiles fidgeted with the buttons on his jacket as he thought. “Argent’s team and the pack can handle Kate and Dorian since they’re here, but we should still have Jester’s working on Dorian’s faction. We need a team for Mortimer’s too. Until we find Haha, No, that’s everyone. It’s only three.”

“Is it that important to have four?” Derek asked.

Instead of answering Derek, Stiles asked Gregson, “We have Jesters who aren’t spies too, right? Like people who are just at home awaiting orders or whatever?”

“Yes,” Gregson confirmed. “Some Jesters are also attacking supply routes and tracking enemy movements when they can.”

“Assign them to the suit targeting whoever they’ve been inconveniencing. The others, make hearts. Put out the call to start converging near Beacon Hills. If we find Haha, No, move them to him instead, but in the meantime, we might need more soldiers.”

“If they don’t want to come?”

“Then let them stay home, but they don’t get a cool suit. They’re just wannabe Jesters.”

Gregson raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

Dumbo asked, “Does that make us hearts?”

“Sure.”

“Sick.”

“The other two suits?” Gregson asked.

“I don’t care.”

Dumbo said, “Clubs for Dorian, diamonds for Mortimer.”

Gregson waited for Stiles’ approval, which he gave with a nod and vague wave.

Derek had maintained his place against the wall but jerked forward now to look out the window. They were high up in the loft, but it offered a fair view of the street outside.

“Ethan,” Derek said as he headed for the door, apparently planning to descend several flights of stairs rather than let Ethan come to them.

Someday, Derek would get the elevator working again, but he’d been focusing on converting more of the building’s space into apartments instead of finding ways for people to reach those apartments if Derek ever let anyone live in them.

“Again?” Stiles asked.

He hadn’t expected Ethan to disappear after his twin’s funeral, but Stiles and Derek weren’t on patrol. Maybe Ethan couldn’t find Cat or Malia. Both excelled at moving undetected, and neither consistently carried or answered their phones. The pack should rethink letting those two patrol together without a phone. Stiles frowned over that, but not for nearly as long as it would take a human to climb all the stairs to the loft.

Ethan slammed the door open and stormed into the loft with Derek on his heels. “Why did Scott leave?”

“Dude, he has class. He’ll come back when we find something. Or Friday, whichever comes first.” Stiles motioned Ethan back toward the door. “If that’s all…”

“It’s not.”

“Of course not.”

“Lydia stayed.”

“She lives across the country and can’t just pop over as easily as Scott. And she possesses powers to control her professors that Scott could never even dream of.”

“What?”

“I told her to go. She wouldn’t. What else have you got?”

“What the hell are you four doing?”

“Planning. Plotting. Maybe even a little scheming.”

“You should be hunting.”

“There are actual hunters in town for that.”

“So you think you can just ignore what’s happening here and go after Sorokin like you always do?”

“I don’t fucking answer to you.”

Ethan growled, eyes flashing blue. Derek put a hand to Ethan’s chest but didn’t have to restrain him before Ethan backed down.

“You don’t care,” Ethan told Stiles. “You can’t even be bothered to hide it. Maybe I should be thankful you don’t seem _glad_ my brother is gone, but that’s a low fucking bar.” He spun on his heel and stormed from the loft as quickly as he had come.

“He seems upset,” Dumbo said.

“Fuck you, Dumbo,” Derek said, visibly shocking everyone else as much as Stiles.

Derek turned on his heel to follow Ethan, even though he hadn’t spoken to support him against Stiles.

_I have to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself,_ Derek explained.

_Why did he come find_ me _if he wants someone to care? Lydia cares._

_I think he already spoke to Lydia. I can smell her on him, a little. She probably tried to comfort him, but that’s not what he wants._

_He wants revenge._

Derek confirmed, wordlessly, that Ethan only wanted the one who killed his brother dead now too.

Gregson whispered, “Eddie, we talked about sympathy and compassion, remember.”

“Can’t I save them for people I like?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

Stiles collapsed back in his seat and pressed the palms of his hands over his eyes. “Gregson?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Do you all get paid?”

“I… ‘hacked’ Felix Lorrain’s bank accounts, so, yes. Jesters are paid. Some more openly than others since secrecy keeps spies safe.”

“You push me to pay attention to people, but not to that. I don’t think you’ve ever brought it up.”

“It wasn’t an issue you could have solved for us.”

“But if I was really in charge, I should have.”

“You give the orders.”

“I make decisions. _You_ hand them out.”

“As you say, sir.”

“Was it by accident? The Jesters forming. Or was that you?”

“A bit of both. It wouldn’t have worked without you though.”

“Gregson?”

“Yes, sir?” She sounded tired this time.

“Do you actually prefer I call you Gregson?”

“No, but maybe you’d better until this is over.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

Stiles lifted his head from the headrest to squint at her. She looked calm as ever, though the swirling galaxy of her glass eye made even her calm expression intense.

“Do you think if I thought of you as ‘Sara’ I wouldn’t use you as bait?”

“That’s not it.”

Stiles frowned.

“If you’re going to call me something else, it’s going to be because I _am_ something else. That won’t happen until Watchtower falls.”

“When I’m allowed to call you ‘Sara,’ are you going to call me ‘Stiles’?”

“If we both survive.”

“We will.”

“As you say, sir.”


	3. The Beat of Your Heart

“What the hell, Stiles?” Trick shouted as they practically kicked in the door.

“I had a feeling you’d be upset.”

“It’s like you’re not even a person so much as a shambling wad of mistakes leeching all decency from the world.”

Trick swept through the living room to find Stiles in the kitchen washing dishes. He set a plate aside to dry and started scrubbing the next one, nodding for Trick to continue.

“You dragged Sara into your shit too! And why is your door unlocked?” Trick shoved an accusing finger against Stiles' chest.

He pretended it threw his balance and fell away from Trick only to catch himself and laugh at the sudden terror on their face.

When they realized they had not, in fact, pushed poor, delicate, injured Stiles hard enough to knock him over, Trick’s anger returned twofold.

“What. The. Fuck. Is. Wrong. With. You?”

Stiles shrugged. “I met Gregson through Watchtower, so she’s always been part of this shit. I know people think she’s too good for me, but she follows me by choice.”

“You’re going to get both of you killed.”

“Probably not.”

“Probably?”

“I try not to get overconfident.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Maybe I started recently.”

“As human garbage, the only thing you do is ferment further and present a health and safety hazard.”

“Then stop exposing yourself to my noxious fumes. The door is open because I’m waiting to hear back from someone, and I’ve got dishes to hazardize for my father.” He held up the last plate and scrub wand, though there were more dishes piled by the sink waiting to be cleaned.

“I told you and Sara the eye is dangerous. Why won’t you listen?”

“It’s a calculated risk.”

“Dumbo’s the only calculated one of you lot, and, to be frank, he’s evil. Like, he’s generally still cool, but he’d sell his own mother for a chance to punch your bad guy and walk away safe. Not even kill him, just get a blow in and gloat a bit.”

“Are you saying I’m not evil?”

“Do you want me to call you evil?” Trick threw up their hands.

“No, I just assumed you would.”

Trick shook their head. They sat on the kitchen table with one foot in a chair and the other swinging in the air below them.

“I know I’m… prickly, Stiles. It’s not because I really think you’re terrible. I wish my power was enough to protect you, but it isn’t. I try to learn more, to find what it takes, but I don’t measure up to your stakes.”

“You’ve absolutely saved my life several times over,” Stiles said. Trick had done Stiles’ tattoos, all except the scarified club on his temple that gave him his telekinesis.

“Most of the tattoos’ power came from you.” They paused, looking downward to where their finger traced the grain of the table’s wood. “And I didn’t get it right on the last one. We both know that.”

“It works,” Stiles pointed out. It took pain exactly as he’d intended. “So maybe we had a harder time, but it does what I wanted it to.”

“Blood magic is more complicated than that.”

“I’m the one who pushed you to finish it even though we couldn’t agree. If anything goes wrong, it’s on me. And I really needed you to make them look good. Can you imagine how ugly they’d have been if I did it myself?”

Trick snickered. The sound was subdued but still a good turn.

“It’s too late to stop,” Stiles said. “Dumbo left to plant our informant seeds already.”

“Fuck.”

“If Theo doesn’t agree, do you want to lock me in a basement somewhere?”

“Why am I not your first choice?”

“The other factions have spies, so they probably know we’re allies.”

“Friends, dumbass. We’re friends.” Before Stiles had to respond to even a hint of genuine sentiment, Trick continued, “If you practice, you might be able to tell when your blood is used against you, but I hear you’re bad at being psychic.”

“Very bad.”

“Can you get better?”

“In the next few days? No. Ever? Probably still no.”

“Why not? Can’t Derek help you train?”

Stiles piled more dishes into the sink with a laugh. “It’s all just counter to the way I think. I don’t know why.”

“Is it ‘cause you’re dumb?”

“Probably.”

They laughed together.

"Let's hope it's more magic than psychic," Trick said with a shrug that made it clear the distinction was less than clear to them.

The front door crashed open again, this time followed shortly by the back door.

Trick dove from the table and tugged Stiles away, but Stiles resisted. No one stood at the back door even though it hung open. Stiles heard someone walking through the living room.

“Couldn’t you have told whoever you were waiting for to ring the fucking doorbell?” Trick hissed, pulling at Stiles’ hand again.

“I’m expecting a kidnapping. They’re supposed to make it dramatic.”

“Fuuuuuuck.” Trick grabbed a kitchen knife and positioned themself between Stiles and the living room.

“Don’t protect me,” Stiles said.

“You don’t know that it’s them, or that they’re actually allies.”

“Corey is the only person I know who’s sometimes invisible.”

“So?”

“So we didn’t see anyone at the back door. If Corey’s the only invisible person here, and I’m the only telekinetic here, then we’re the only ones who could have opened it.”

“You trust them?”

“No.”

Theo stepped into the kitchen saying, “I’m impressed, Stiles.”

Tracy followed Theo in, advanced on Trick, and casually knocked the knife from their hands before wiping a thick trail of venom over their wrist. She caught Trick before they hit the floor and set them aside.

“Peter’s supposed to be with me, not Trick.”

“He’s in the truck, and they’re staying behind.” Theo smirked and nudged Trick with the toe of his boot, so Stiles stunned him with the spade talisman tattooed on his cheek before slapping Theo.

“Don’t fuck with my friends.”

“They were very brave,” Tracy said. Stiles couldn't tell if her smile was genuine or predatory.

“And stupid,” Stiles said, shoving a finger in Trick’s face. “But only I get to say that.”

Trick could move enough to stick their tongue at Stiles and did.

“You’ll be able to move again soon,” Tracy told Trick as she took Stiles’ phone from him and left it on the table. “When you can, call Stiles’ dad.”

“I will, but also fuck you,” Trick said.

“We’re playing by your rules,” Theo said to Stiles. “And I’m ready for you to tell me why.”

“Where’s Hayden?” Stiles asked instead. Hayden was the only member of the chimera pack he almost trusted.

“With Josh, getting your room ready.” Theo motioned toward the door. “Let’s go.”

“My cane.” Stiles turned to grab it from where he’d leaned it against the counter before he started the dishes, but Tracy pulled him back. “You won’t need it.”

“I probably will.”

Still, Stiles let them lead him past Trick and from the house without his cane.

A black truck waited outside. Theo took the driver’s seat. Tracy shoved Stiles in the back next to Peter, who winked with only the barest scrap of humor, and climbed in beside them even though the front passenger seat was empty. Seemed empty. Corey appeared and buckled his seatbelt as Theo started the engine.

“Peter refused to share your plan,” Theo said as he drove. “Now you can.”

Tracy traced one claw over another with a sidelong glance at Stiles. Both claws were dry, for now.

“We’re setting a trap, and it needs to look like I’m incapacitated for it to work.” Stiles tried not to stare at Tracy’s claws. “Your busy schedule worked in my favor since any Watchtower spies have seen that we aren’t working together.”

“And what’s to keep me from keeping you prisoner for real?”

“Not sure what you could gain by it, for one,” Stiles said, looking past Theo and Corey to track their path through the city. “We’ll fuck you up, for another.”

Theo laughed, but it wasn’t the mockery Stiles would expect from someone who doubted Stiles could follow through on his threats.

“You _like_ that?” Stiles asked.

“Better than I’d like you being stupid enough to trust me.”

“I miss fourth-grade Theo. He was sweet.”

“He wasn’t,” Theo said. “He was in hiding.”

“Becoming a monster liberated the real you, then?”

“You could say that.”

“Literally just did.”

“I’d say you should try it, but you’re already something of a monster, aren’t you, Stiles?”

“Wow. Very edgy, Theo.”

“You’re the one who goes by Joker.”

“I didn’t pick it.”

“You work it.”

Stiles shrugged, though Theo couldn’t see that.

“What about you?” Peter asked. “Did you become what they made you, or did the Doctors help your body catch up to your mind?”

“I see. Yeah, I’ve always been a monster. Is that a problem?”

“I’m a born wolf,” Peter reminded him. “I’ve always been a monster too.”

“I can’t even tell what you two are posturing for,” Stiles complained.

“Just getting to know each other,” Peter lied.

“Peter is your bodyguard,” Theo said. “I’m sure he’s trying to look tough.”

“You realize I’m stronger than all of you, right?”

Theo’s head jerked like he’d tried to look back at Stiles before thinking better of it. Stiles knew he hadn’t lied, and now the rest of them did too.

“Guess not,” Stiles said into the silence.

He wondered if the chimeras believed him or were surprised to find he could lie. They saw what he did to the Beast. They should have known better. Though, to be fair, they also knew he’d passed out before the fight was done, leaving Lydia and Allison to finish it.

**.x.**

Stiles leaned against the wall of his new cell since it was Peter’s turn for the cot. An electrified chain link fence separated Stiles and Peter from the chimeras, though only two of them guarded the cell from the other side. In the café, Hayden had said the chimeras needed to stay apart to keep the pieces of a mysterious something separated. Stiles didn’t mind the time away from Tracy and Theo. One creeped Stiles out and the other just pissed him off.

The rest of the cell was simple enough, clearly converted from a larger room now bisected by the fence. There were no windows, most likely because it was underground, though Theo had insisted on obfuscating their location when he brought Stiles and Peter in.

Two doors led from the room. The chimeras only seemed to use the one on the far wall, making the other door a closet. When they let Stiles use the restroom, they took him blindfolded through the exit door and into a restroom across the hall. With such a simple route, Stiles could have found the restroom easily enough, but the blindfold concealed visual clues from anyone spying via Gregson’s eye.

When Stiles pointed out that an included restroom would work better, the chimeras ignored him. He let it slide for fear of losing his restroom privileges. It may have been an old toilet and sink with rusted pipes, but it also had toilet paper, soap, washcloths, and towels, which made it practically a luxury spa compared to Stiles’ previous captivity restrooms. Most often, those had consisted of a bucket in a corner. He did not want to use a bucket again.

There was very little in the cell itself aside from its prisoners and not much space to add more. Stiles knew it was a rush job but still thought they could have found a second bed, or at least a pillow. Maybe a futon.

Either Peter slept more heavily than Stiles ever expected, or he was humoring Stiles. He never stirred as Stiles lifted the cot up and down, in part for the practice and in part to remind the chimeras he could. He tracked its movement with a finger, not because he needed to, but to keep the chimeras from being certain whether he did.

Corey and Josh watched the cot rise and fall. They had been playing on their phones while Stiles stretched his body but struggled to turn from the proof of Stiles’ true power now.

Hayden entered and had to tap Josh on the shoulder before he left.

“You don’t think they’ll wonder why you can’t do that to the gate?” Hayden asked.

Stiles shrugged. Froze. Set the bed down before he dropped it.

“They should assume you subdued me, right? I’ve been kidnapped and imprisoned before, so they know it’s possible.”

“You were weaker then.”

“If they believed I was powerful, they wouldn’t leave me alone to grow into a real threat.”

Hayden turned to her own phone, apparently convinced. Stiles breathed again. For a moment, he had worried she knew the enemy might see what he was doing. He began lifting the cot again. It was the heaviest piece of furniture he had, even without Peter on it. The competition was not steep in an otherwise empty cell.

_Oh, hell._

Not Stiles’ thought.

_Derek?_

Derek crouched behind a tree that wouldn’t offer cover for long. A shotgun firing preceded a spray of bark past Derek’s shoulder.

“You can only hide so long, Derek,” Kate taunted.

Fuck. Why was Derek out there alone?

Stiles stood. “Derek’s in trouble.”

“He can take care of himself,” Peter said, not asleep.

“I’ll text your pack.” Hayden was already typing as she spoke. “Where is he?”

Stiles told her and began pacing the cell.

“We have to be captured or the plan falls apart,” Peter reminded him.

“But it’s Kate.”

“Well, damn.” Peter grimaced. “We knew this was a risk.”

Derek had left the tree behind, and Kate stalked him laughing. Her berserkers circled to corner Derek, pressing him back into Kate’s line of sight. Their bones rattled in the night.

“He’s not going to make it.”

Stiles turned to the gate, but Peter leaped across the cell to take Stiles’ hands in his own.

“If we leave, there’s no point in coming back.”

“We have to save him.”

“He’s not going to die.”

“They have him surrounded.”

“He’s stronger than they are.”

“Is he stronger than you?”

“...I don’t know.”

Derek hurled the bones at Kate. When she dodged, he leapt behind her to grab her by the throat and pull her tight enough against him to ram his claws into the back of her neck. He didn’t care to protect Kate’s mind as he had Ethan’s.

Flashes. Chasing Derek through the woods. Leaning back in a lawn chair with her feet up and a beer in her hand while Brenna stalked back and forth, pacing, pacing, worrying. Running a finger along a berserker’s jawbone; he would serve her well. Holding one of the twins down while Brenna pierced him with her claws, her eyes glowing bright as she took his life and his power for her own to show Kate how to do it to Derek. Sauntering past guards too weak to stop her. Laughing, without humor. Rage. A plan. Derek Hale would die. All she needed was bait, and maybe an extra set of hands, of claws.

The forest. Derek held Kate with one arm, the other pulled back, free from her neck, still dripping blood. The hand that had moved Derek's arm still gripped his wrist.

“You always were so pretty.” Whispered in his ear in a voice that echoed from Derek’s mind into Stiles’. Wight’s voice. “Would he still want you if you weren’t?” Wight taunted.

“You need a new hobby.” Derek tried to project confidence he couldn’t have while facing Kate, berserkers, and Wight all at once.

Wight had been locked away deep beneath Eichen House with Jenneva Cole. There had been a fire, gunshots. No one told Stiles what came of it. He had thought that was because none of his greatest enemies had escaped. He had thought his pack trusted him enough to tell him when he was in danger.

Kate plunged forward, flipping Derek over her back and onto the ground. Her berserkers circled in around Derek and Wight alike.

“You think that’s enough to stop me?” Kate asked, as cocky as if she’d pulled Derek’s claws away herself.

Derek smashed through one of the berserkers, caving in the bones it wore to crush the bones within its body. He was stronger than they were. He tore off his clothes as he ran and shifted into a wolf. He was faster than they were too.

“He’s getting away,” Stiles whispered.

“See? I told you.”

Stiles’ hands tried to shake, but Peter held them still. Peter let go of one to pull Stiles close against his chest.

“They aren’t strong enough to take Derek,” Peter promised.

The berserkers gave chase. Something delayed the women. Each other. Wight shouted, but a berserker’s cry drowned out the words. Derek turned to—

Derek was gone.

_Derek? Derek?_ Stiles shouted the name in his mind.

“DEREK?” Stiles screamed for him, shaking.

“He’ll get away,” Peter promised.

“They’re blocking him. Wight is there.”

Peter stiffened, but his hold on Stiles only tightened. “Cole?”

“I didn’t see her, but she’s the one who knows how.”

Hayden said, “Your friends are almost there.”

Derek was the strongest wolf in the pack. Stiles doubted the others could beat berserkers, much less Watchtower tech.

“They’ll reach him,” Peter said. “We’re too far out to help. Trust the pack.”

Stiles wrapped his arms around Peter and held on to keep from running or falling. With his newly freed hand, Peter stroked Stiles’ hair and kept telling him Derek would be okay.

Clinging to Peter was better than leaving his hands free. It wasn’t enough. With his fists clenched too tightly on Peter’s shirt to shake, the old twitch found Stiles’ eye.

“I can’t,” he whispered.

“Just wait it out,” Peter said.

“I can’t.” His voice was firm this time.

Stiles tried to pull back, but Peter held him close. His arms were stronger than Stiles’, but only physically. Stiles pried Peter’s arms away and stepped toward the gate.

“Open it.”

“No.” Hayden didn’t even bother to stand.

“I don’t care if it ruins the plan. I can’t sit here while Derek’s in danger.”

“Your plan isn’t my concern,” Hayden said. “Theo told us to keep you here.”

“And you have to do everything Theo says.”

“Yes.” She spat the word past her teeth.

“Fine,” Stiles snarled.

He shoved at the gate. It didn’t budge. He reached for the table Corey sat at, but couldn’t touch it.

“Your power will only work inside your cell,” Hayden told him.

“How? Wait, were you trying to make me figure that out before? No, how is more important.” Stiles tried to focus, breathing deliberately in and out to center himself. “Dorian?”

Hayden shook her head.

“Cole.”  
Hayden nodded.

Stiles scowled. Remembering he had an image to maintain, he shifted it into a grin. Maybe Hayden would think him excited to kill Cole now.

“She’s not going to get you,” Hayden said.

“So you say now.”

“She’s too busy,” Corey said.

Stiles had all but forgotten he was there.

“With?” Peter asked.

“Recreating her notes.” Corey shrugged. “Theo doesn’t mind. It keeps her busy.”

Stiles lifted the cot and slammed it against the chain link fencing. Sparks danced along the metal, but against his telekinetic strength, it felt more like an impenetrable wall than mere mesh. Stretching out the dents and fitting the rent metal back together, Stiles returned the cot to its place.

Corey and Hayden’s eyes were wide.

“You can’t get out.” Hayden sounded less certain than before.

Theatrics made the Joker work. The one thing more dramatic than shattering objects with his mind was taking the shards of something beyond repair and fitting them back together anyway. Theatrics worked on enemies, on friends, on family, and even sometimes on Derek. Technically, Stiles had fixed the cot so he could sleep on it, but impressing the chimeras could only help.

“What does Theo think he’ll gain from keeping me?” Stiles demanded.

“It was Cole’s condition, but she can’t have you until she finishes the work Theo wants from her,” Corey answered.

“And then he’ll kill her,” Stiles guessed.

Hayden said, “He didn’t say that.”

“Still not inspiring confidence that _I’m_ meant to survive this,” Stiles noted.

“You don’t need confidence. You’re trapped.” With her eyes darting between Stiles and the cot he’d demonstrated his power on, Hayden looked less certain than she sounded. Less certain, but not afraid. Joker was supposed to scare people.

“For now.” Stiles tried on a little smirk.

Hayden seemed unaffected. Nervousness left Corey wide-eyed and fidgety, but it still wasn’t the same as Stiles expected from his Joker grins. He’d been trapped before; that wasn’t the problem.

Stiles tried bashing down the other three walls of his cell, but they held as firmly as the gate.

Hayden glanced down at her phone. “Derek got away.”

“What?”

“Your boyfriend is safe.”

“No, I mean why are you telling me?”

“The terms haven’t changed for us. You just didn’t know some of them.” Hayden grimaced with something very near to shame.

“You’re working with Cole. Wight is working with Cole. Wight went after Derek.” Stiles felt the hardness in his voice.

“Wight ran,” Hayden said. “She’s not with us.”

“That’s easy enough to say. Doesn’t make it true.”

“It doesn’t sound like she’s lying,” Peter said.

“You don’t know her well enough to tell.”

Peter shrugged.

Still, Stiles believed her. Hayden and Corey weren’t afraid of Stiles because they knew they didn’t have to be, just like how none of Stiles’ packmates got scared when he grinned. Uncomfortable, maybe, scared _for_ him sometimes, but never _of_ him.

Derek’s mind returned to Stiles with the words, _I’m safe. Wight was wearing a jammer._

 _Did she get away?_ Stiles asked.

Derek hesitated, tense. Stiles sat on the cot to wait.

_She’s dead. Berserkers._

_And Kate?_

_Gone._

_I tried to help you. I’m trapped for real._

_I’ll get you out._

Stiles sighed and gritted his teeth against a scowl. _Wait for now. Theo’s worked out a deal with Cole and is ‘pretending’ to hold me for her while she finishes her end._

_You want to stall and hope your plan works faster than Cole’s?_

_For now. Mostly, I’m not sure we want to be in open war against the chimeras at the same time all this is going on._

_I’ll talk with the others._ Derek didn’t send Stiles a thought about how he was right that they should have waited, but he didn’t keep Stiles from feeling it either.

 _Hayden heard you were safe before I did,_ Stiles whined.

_I had to find and disable the jammer._

_So you have one now._

Derek still held the thing in his hand, having just turned it off. Wight had worn it like a watch, on a strap around her wrist. Derek put it in his pocket.

 _You’re in too much danger for me to risk blocking you out,_ Derek told him.

_Tuck it away for later._

_It won’t help._

_It might._

Peter waved a hand in front of Stiles’ face. “Are we to be rescued?”

“No,” Hayden said. “Theo should be explaining to Allison now.”

“Explaining?”

“That we can’t let you go. Holding you was the deal to begin with until you decided to abandon your own plan.”

“Derek was in trouble.”

“Derek had it handled.”

“This isn’t like you.”

“You don’t know what I’m like.”

“We met because you chose to protect two strangers from a member of your own pack,” Stiles reminded her. “This _isn’t_ like you. Is it Theo?”  
“Theo’s our alpha, so of course I’m following his orders.”

“You remind us he’s your alpha an awful lot, almost like there’s nothing else about him you’d ally yourself with.”

Hayden stood with a frown and ordered Corey to watch them as she stormed from the room.

“I don’t think you convinced her,” Peter said.

“Just give it time. I grow on people.”

“You can’t charm her,” Corey said. “That’s not how Theo got to her, so it’s not enough to break his hold.”

“How did he do it then?” Stiles asked.

Corey shook his head. “Don’t forget, he’s got me too. I’m grateful you saved me, especially given what it cost you, but I’m part of Theo’s pack.”

“He threatened you, right?”

“Stop trying.” Corey turned away like he thought that would help.

“He never said how he would heal you from whatever made you failed experiments, so either it’s ongoing, or he’s going after your families.” Or both.

Corey pulled headphones from his bag, which _would_ help block Stiles out.

“I don’t think he’ll start spitting black blood or mercury again,” Peter said. “None of them smell sick anymore.”

“They’ve got to know Scott would help protect their families.” Stiles frowned. Without the Dread Doctors, Theo was alone. Unless Tracy sided with him. As a kanima chimera, she could use her venom to paralyze the pack. It still seemed too little to scare Hayden and Corey into loyalty.

“I don’t think he can hear us.” Peter pointed to Corey. “Do you want to craft an escape plan?”

“I’m not ready to use it, but we can always scheme. What’ve you got?”

Peter shrugged.

“Good plan, very thorough.”

“You lied to Dimitri.”

Stiles tried to say, “???” with his face. He was getting pretty good at it.

Peter explained, “About how much you can lift telekinetically. I weigh more than eighty pounds, and you aren’t in pain now.”

“Ohhh. Yeah, that was true before, but it never went back to normal after the Beast.”

“So it can get stronger.”

“Maybe? At the start, it was really strong, and I’m not sure if I got weaker or just never figured out how to access it consciously.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm?”

“We’ve wasted the time you’ve been healing by letting your power risk atrophying again.”

“Don’t leave next time, and you can help me stay strong.”

Peter frowned.

“Also, no, we haven’t. I just haven’t told the others because they think I’m fragile.” He knocked his knuckles against his bad knee.

“What about Derek?”

“He’s fine so long as I don’t hurt myself.”

“Who isn’t?”

“What?”

“Who is against you training even though you aren’t hurting your leg to do it?”

“This has nothing to do with escaping. Do you want me to ask Derek to break us out after all?”

“That depends on whether Theo’s double crossing us or Cole.”

“Probably both.”

“I don’t like being locked up, but that was true when I agreed to this. We should escape after Dimitri has the eye. It’s also still true that he’s unlikely to move on Beacon Hills with you in play.”

“Technically, we also need to be trapped when Haha, No uses the eye, assuming he figures out how.”

Peter scratched absently at the wall in a spiral pattern. “Did I mention that this plan was doomed to fail from the start, and I hate it.”

“A little. You still agreed.”

“I’m a sucker.”

“Not as a rule.”

“For you, specifically.”

Stiles twitched his shoulders, not sure how to take or respond to that.

**.x.**

Derek crossed his arms and emanated his displeasure to the room. They picked up on it way better than they ever had Stiles’ moods, which seemed unfair.

 _It’s because you don’t loom,_ Derek thought to him. _Now stop distracting me and watch quietly._

Stiles settled against the wall of his unexpectedly genuine cell and tapped his fingers against the floor. Peter grimaced, but Stiles turned his attention back to Derek.

Allison had arrived and stood at Derek’s side with an arrow nocked but not drawn. Scott had been there from the start and now rested a faux-friendly hand on Theo’s shoulder.

“All this isn’t necessary,” Theo said. He tried to brush Scott’s hand aside, but Scott only tightened his grip, letting his claws dig through Theo’s shirt.

“You know better than that,” Allison said. Her voice was too hard to be as calm as it otherwise seemed.

Allison’s rage had been blinding once. Since the nogitsune, it had grown cold and hard.

“You don’t trust me,” Theo said, “but—”

“You’ve proven we can’t,” Scott interrupted.

Derek growled, softly, but Theo’s enhanced hearing would catch it. When Theo turned to him, Derek tilted his head just enough to stare down his nose, so he seemed too high above Theo to look any way but down at him.

 _Is_ that _how you loom?_ Stiles asked.

_Shh, I’m trying to menace._

“We didn’t have time to consult you first or we would have.” Theo’s voice didn’t shake, but it had lost a sliver of his usual confidence. His heartbeat remained steady. “Obviously, we’ll share information we get from Jenneva Cole to make up for the inconvenience. And even more obviously, we won’t give Stiles to her.”

“You have not made that obvious,” Scott disagreed.

Allison asked, “You didn’t lift a finger to save Corey. Why would we expect you to do more for a near stranger?”

“I didn’t believe the Doctors could be beaten,” Theo answered. “I was wrong. But _Corey_ is the one I owed an apology for that, and he already has it.”

“We needed more backup in that fight,” Derek said, voice taut with anger. “Stiles might not walk with a limp if you’d joined us.”

“You’re overestimating my power.” Theo all but rolled his eyes. “What matters now is that I know we can defeat Cole. I don’t intend to let her do any real damage, but her research could prove invaluable to all of us.” After studying the pack’s unwavering glares for a moment, he added, “If you want a permanent solution, we should kill her.”

“No killing,” Scott insisted.

Derek struggled not to disagree.

 _Agreeing with Theo makes me feel slimy,_ Stiles thought.

 _Then don’t._ Derek concentrated on his scowl to avoid slipping into the absent expression that made it so clear when he spoke telepathically with Stiles.

_It’s not that easy. You’re taking Scott’s side, and even you would honestly rather rip her throat out._

_We can choose to be better than our worst instincts._

Stiles rolled his eyes.

_I’m serious._

Theo shoved a finger at Scott. “Do you even know what Cole’s research involves?”

“She wants to give normal humans powers.”

Theo dropped his finger in surprise. Had he really expected Scott not to know? Did he think Stiles never knew or never told?

Recovering, Theo tapped his temple where Cole had scarred Stiles. “She put that thing on Stiles, put that power in him. I need to know what that means and what else she can do.”

“Why?” Scott asked.

“Because I can’t use the Doctors’ methods for my pack anymore. They only really wanted to return their great Beast, but Cole’s research aims for the subject to survive.”

“Most still don’t,” Derek said.

“Which is why she wants to study Stiles. He’s not the only one who survived, but he is among the strongest. She said so without even knowing the power that he summoned against the Beast.”

_I lost though._

_You lost very impressively,_ Derek assured him. _But she doesn’t need to know about it. Our escape was… showy._

_Still don’t remember much of that._

_You don’t want to._

_Pay attention; they’re talking._

Derek growled internally because Stiles was the one distracting him.

“We don’t know the lasting effects of what the Doctors did to us,” Theo snarled in response to something Derek and Stiles had missed. “Cole’s research is the best chance I see to ensure we survive them.”

“If you need help, we’ll help you, but you went behind our backs. You’re holding our friend hostage, and you’ve promised him to our enemy.” Scott’s voice rose in volume as he spoke, but he reined it in before the end, barely, and only past clenched teeth and under red eyes.

Behind him, Allison raised her bow slowly to aim at Theo. “Scott, Derek, do you believe him?”

“He doesn’t seem to be lying,” Scott said.

Derek’s response was shorter but started later. “I don’t.”

Scott was right. Theo’s pulse and voice remained overall constant, rising slightly with his temper only. His scent never spiked at all, and he maintained eye contact, mostly with Scott. He didn’t _seem_ to be lying. But Stiles could manage all of that while lying. So could Peter. No reason to assume Theo couldn’t. Truth be told, Theo _should_ be nervous and inconsistent. Even the arrow pointed at him failed to ruffle Theo’s feathers.

 _Even if what he’s said is true, there’s something more that he’s hiding,_ Stiles thought.

Peter asked, “What are they saying?”

Stiles shushed him.

Theo had raised his hands and offered empty platitudes while Stiles was distracted.

 _“We_ proved ourselves when we fought the Beast and the Dread Doctors,” Scott insisted.

“A fight you sat out,” Allison reminded him again.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m an idiot and a coward. It’s too late to fix that fight now.” Theo shook his head. “You say you want me to trust you to help us, but you won’t trust me. It has to go both ways. Do you want a hostage? Is that it? Someone to make sure I return Stiles?”

“I don’t believe you care enough about your pack for a hostage to be effective.” Allison still aimed at him as she spoke.

Theo threw up his hands. “Stiles is exactly where he wants to be, which is the whole reason I pretended to agree to Cole’s plan.”

“He wanted the cell to be fake,” Derek said.

“Watchtower is smarter than that, even in shatters as it is,” Theo growled, finally losing his composure. “You’ve tried to fool them before too, and realized it has to be _real_ , especially against Dimitri Sorokin.”

 _How does he know that?_ Stiles asked.

_Probably Cole. Be quiet._

“Your information is incomplete,” Derek said.

“How?”

Derek didn’t answer but made sure to look smug about it.

“I didn’t tell you everything I know,” Theo taunted, regaining some measure of control.

Derek tilted his head slightly and raised one eyebrow, furrowing the other over squinted eyes.

_How did I not realize how intentional your eyebrow dialog is?_

_It’s more natural around you._ Derek concentrated harder to hold the expression despite Stiles’ distractions.

Theo frowned at his prodding’s failure.

 _Take the hostage,_ Stiles ordered.

_This was supposed to be practice observing, not interfering._

_I’m incapable, a failure, whatever. Just demand Hayden or Corey._

“Give us Hayden,” Derek said.

Scott and Allison looked more surprised than Theo.

“I need her to protect Stiles.”

“Then Corey.”

“I need him to monitor Cole.”

“Then no deal.”

“You can take Tracy or Josh. She has paralyzing venom, which is useful, but she doesn’t get along with Stiles. Josh eats electricity, which doesn’t help either task right now. I have too few pack members to make better offers.”

“No,” Derek said with more confidence than Stiles felt.

Scott and Allison sent Theo away.

Stiles sat against the wall of his cell without fidgeting, which seemed almost unnatural for him. He typically lived in constant motion. Even when he spaced out to use his telepathic link with Derek, his fingers needed something to do.

 _True, but invasive,_ Stiles noted of the thought, which had not been his.

 _Only I can hear you,_ Derek reminded him. _And it wasn’t me._

Peter had turned back to the wall to continue tracing a large, surprisingly round spiral with his claw. If he wasn’t watching Stiles not fidget, it couldn’t have been his thought either.

_Whoever it is can tell what I’m doing and must know me well._

_It’s not standard psychic bleed. You’re picking up stray signals from a spy._

Stiles considered the stray thoughts he’d had and immediately dismissed the thought that it could be Watchtower. It had to be an ally, and now that he considered it, Stiles knew an ally who could spy on him magically, who thought he was callous and fidgety and capable of so much more.

_Gregson. It must be when she sees me with the eye._

_Then you can tell when they use it against you. Focus on how it felt when she checked on you._

Stiles sighed, leaving Derek to explain to Scott and Allison.

“Theo basically said exactly what Hayden told us. The rest was mostly bickering,” Stiles told Peter.

“Hayden wouldn’t have lied,” Josh said without bothering to look at them. He’d been alternating playing on his phone and bouncing a tennis ball against the wall for the past two hours. None of the chimeras left Peter and Stiles alone, but none ever seemed worried about guarding their charges either. Stiles had been a prisoner before. This didn’t look like confidence in the cell so much as like the chimeras truly believed Stiles was an ally, if one in an awkward position.

“Maybe we’re not the only ones Theo lies to,” Peter suggested.

Josh frowned. “I’ve seen some of the notes the evil scientist gave him, talking about sound waves and frequencies. It seems like things the Doctors used to say. Theo says he’s going to find some way to help us.”

“Help you what?” Stiles asked.

Josh shrugged, but it was tense and slow. “Just, with stuff.” He avoided looking Stiles in the eye.

“Are you still sick? Do you still sometimes bleed silver shit?”

“That parts over. The Doctors made it happen to purge their experiment pool.”

“But…?”

“But I’m still not a werewolf. I’m not a… were-eel, or whatever the hell the word for that is. Even with all that, I’m not exactly human either. None of us really knows what that means.”

“Why would you want to be human?” Peter asked.

Josh took a moment before giving another uncomfortable shrug. “We aren’t sure if there will be other side effects. Besides, sometimes, healing is more a disadvantage.”

Peter stared, incredulous, apparently unable to respond.

“I don’t want to talk about it with you,” Josh said, scowling. “You both want more power, so you wouldn’t understand.”

Stiles couldn’t say Josh was wrong, so he didn’t.

Peter said, “It’s not like we can distract ourselves with private conversation.”

Josh glared with more irritation than full anger. He grabbed his bag and pulled out a pair of over-ear cordless headphones. “Corey said I might need these because you guys are annoying as hell.”

“In those words?” Stiles asked because that didn’t sound like Corey.

“No. Corey’s too nice for that.” He put on the headphones and focused on his phone, probably to choose music.

Peter watched Josh a moment before turning to Stiles. “Why would _healing_ be the power he doesn’t want?”

“He said ‘sometimes.’ It’s probably like the time Scott tried to get drunk and stayed extremely sober.”

Peter sneered.

“Really, you’re against drinking?”

“If he bothered to learn to use his power, he could delay the healing.”

“Like you did to hide from Scott before we knew you were the alpha.” Stiles shook his head. “I’d forgotten that was possible.”

“Not everyone learns how,” Peter said dismissively.

“Can he hear us?”

“Not unless his hearing can filter a great deal more than mine, which I don’t believe is an ability common to eels.”

“The thoughts I’ve had that weren’t mine, or yours, or Dereks. I think they’re Gregson’s. I think when using the eye, it leaves behind a trace of the user, maybe because the blood for the magic came from me. Maybe just because the magic is sloppy, also probably because it came from me.”

“That might have been nice to know before we built a plan around handing it to your arch nemesis. How thoroughly will it harm you to think his thoughts?”

Stiles hadn’t thought enough yet to consider that.

“Are you okay?” Peter asked.

“Yeah, I just hadn’t made it yet from ‘it’s Gregson’ to ‘it’s going to be Haha, No.’”

Peter watched him, nearly spoke, wavered, set it aside. “Well, I guess this means Derek’s theories about psychic bleed are behind us.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“We’re still sensing each other when we shouldn’t, and I… think I had your dream.”

Peter’s eyebrows rose in question.

“I’ve had other things on my mind since then.” Stiles had the dream the night Ethan appeared with his twin’s corpse. “I was having a nightmare, I guess. And it went from mine, to Dereks, to someone else’s, and I guess it was yours. Who was the first person you ever killed?”

Peter flinched back like Stiles had slapped him.

“Are _you_ okay?”

“Of course. Merely surprised.”

That hadn’t looked like any ‘merely.’

Stiles asked, “Why?”

“You said it was a nightmare, and I don’t care about killing, for one.”

“I think you might have cared a little more your first time. Did you strangle him until your claws came out and slashed his throat?”

Peter was quiet a long moment. He nodded his head, just once.

“Why didn’t you care whether he deserved to die?”

“I know he deserved to die,” Peter said. “Pretty much everyone does. I didn’t care if he also deserved to live.”

“What do I deserve?”

“Definitely both.”

“And you?”

“The same.”

“Then who do you think doesn’t deserve to die?”

Peter stroked his chin as though deep in thought. “Infants can’t have done harm yet.”

“I’m serious.”

“I don’t believe it matters what people deserve, Stiles. It matters what they want, what they’re given, and what they can take.”

“What about you, then?”

“What about me?”

“What do you want? What were you given? What can you take?”

Peter didn’t want to answer. His teeth clenched around the words, and his chest grew tight in holding them. When he spoke, it was slow and dragging, each word so heavy it plunged more than flowed past his lips. “Love. Pain. Power.”

This was a much more serious conversation than Stiles had realized if Peter was going to admit he wanted to be _loved._

Stiles used the wall to push himself up and crossed their cell to sit beside Peter on the bed. “Does it matter who he was?” Stiles asked.

“A hunter,” Peter said. “Not an Argent, the son of a younger hunter family. He left them behind, and he went to my sister. She was a new alpha, still learning how to lead the family, how to command people so recently her equals or mentors. The hunter begged her to bite him and take him into her pack. She contacted his family instead, worried biting him could start a war. They declared him dead. They said no hunter would choose to be a wolf.”

“Did she bite him?”

“She asked him why he came. He said he wanted to be more powerful than the family that disowned him. It was a lie. A good lie. She didn’t hear it, but she didn’t hear me either.”

“You were listening in.”

“Talia told him being a werewolf was about more than power. She said he could stay, as a human, and learn about the pack to decide if such a life was truly one he wanted. She said maybe he could change his family’s mind and return home too.”

“But why kill him? Why did he lie?”

“He came because I told him to leave his family. I didn’t hear the lie either. I didn’t hear any of the lies he told me. I don’t think I wanted to, but I was young and foolish. Synonyms, I know.” Peter sighed. “He stayed, and he tried to make allies in the pack and learn about us. He spent a lot of time with Talia. She was older than I was, but still young in her role, and I suppose that left her foolish too. I didn’t say anything at first. I don’t think either of them realized I knew.”

Stiles began to repeat his question but swallowed it back at the look on Peter’s face. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Peter so mournful. Though none fell, enough tears gathered in Peter’s blue eyes to leave them shining even in the dim fluorescent light.

Peter continued on his own. “The hunter didn’t tell us then, and what remained of his family when Talia called didn’t want us to know, but nearly everyone he knew was dead before he met either of us, killed by some beast they’d never faced before, something none of their hunter's tricks worked against. He wanted the power for revenge and expected to die in taking it. He found a young wolf to seduce, and when that wasn’t enough, did the same to the young alpha.

“I learned the why after, from Talia. She kept him human because she refused to bring him into her pack just to let him die, and maybe a little because as long as he was human, he stayed with her. What I knew was that he used me, that he was using my sister, and that he was a hunter. When I confronted him, he lied again, but this time I could hear it. I went to my sister, but she thought she knew him. Knew him better than I could, in any case, as young, and inexperienced, and cast aside as I was.

“This was the first time I knew she wouldn’t protect the pack. She kept an enemy in our home, even after I exposed him. She kept him in _her bed.”_ Peter snarled, eyes flashing a burning red. “I took him out of her bed and out of our home and out of our lives; I took his life.”

“I’m sorry.” Stiles sort of was, and he sort of wasn’t. He didn’t want Peter to have to hurt but didn’t know how to say it, not in that moment anyway.

“His name was Duncan. I didn’t even love him.”

“Then why did you tell him to leave his family?”

“Because he wanted me to. I could tell. At the time, I was too young to know if I loved him or not, but I wanted him to love me.”

Stiles put his arms around Peter, not sure what else he could do. It had been a long time. Peter didn’t need his comfort, or likely even want it. Still, there was a tightness at the center of Peter’s chest, somehow both a void and a clenched fist. Its tension pulled the rest of Peter with it until he felt on the brink of sinking into himself and away into the deep. Stiles took Peter’s face in his hands and brought it to his shoulder, holding him close until Peter stretched his own arms around Stiles in return.

Peter sighed. The chasm in him filled again. The fist opened to a steady palm. He wasn’t broken. He wasn’t empty. He had a new life. A friend, his family, a _daughter._ His heart finally beat again after all the years it seemed to have fallen away. That heart was here in Beacon Hills. In pieces, sometimes, but here.

**.x.**

Stiles rubbed at his left wrist and tried to study the joker tattoo subtly. It looked perfectly normal now. For a moment before Peter pulled away and pretended he hadn’t been crying in Stiles’ arms over how hard it was to love anyone again after losing his family in the fire, the joker tattoo had changed color like it did when Stiles took pain. The change had been less though, still showing the detail beneath, and it had been blue. Stiles’ best guess was emotional pain counted too because Peter had been feeling a lot of it.

Peter sat on the floor since it was Stiles’ turn for the cot. He beat his head arrhythimically against the wall behind him, occasionally letting out a low groan, of boredom, not pain. He didn’t seem to realize how much Stiles had read from him after he talked about Duncan, or maybe he didn’t want to talk about it further. Derek told Stiles again and again that he couldn’t hide his psychic presence. He was too loud. But Peter was never as sensitive as Derek. Maybe…

‘Maybe’ didn’t matter. Stiles didn’t know, and he was too much a coward to ask.

Stiles traced the patchwork of spirals Peter had clawed into the wall by the cot. The barrier keeping him in prevented Stiles from damaging the wall with his power, but clearly had no effect against Peter’s claws.

Hayden had taken over guarding them for Josh. She seemed no more dedicated to Theo than Corey or Josh, but she was harder to get talking than either of the boys.

Derek called Stiles’ attention. _Scott’s father is back._

_What? Why?_

_He’s talking to your dad now. I’m out of range._

Stiles sneered at the wall since Rafael McCall’s face was unavailable.

“Another setback?” Peter asked.

“FBI.”

“Lovely.” Peter sighed, dropping his head back against the wall once more.

Maybe Stiles could convince Rafael to use FBI resources to Stiles’ benefit, but first he would insist on wasting Stiles’ time. Both required Stiles’ freedom, but he had chosen to stay put to fool Haha, No long enough for Derek to hunt him down and take him out.

A scowl settled into place across Stiles’ lips. He had too much to do. Leaving this cell to handle any of it put Cole back into play though, assuming the chimeras’ stories of her furiously scribbling notes could be believed.

Stiles didn’t want to sit in a room and wait. He wanted to slam Cole back into prison. He wanted to help Derek and Peter take out Kate. He wanted to smash the pieces left of Watchtower into dust. He wanted to kill Haha, No himself. It wasn’t enough to watch through Derek’s eyes. Most likely, their connection would be blocked when it happened, so Stiles wouldn’t even get that.

Peter caught his eye and lifted his eyebrows in an unspoken question.

Stiles shook his head. There were several things Peter could ask, but few Stiles imagined he would answer in the affirmative.

Peter sighed. He shook his own head and glanced at Hayden through the fence separating their cell from the room. She sat stiffly in a folding chair, focused on a book Stiles couldn’t see the title of.

Stiles pointed to Peter, his fist, the wall, and mimed collecting rocks from the floor.

Peter raised an eyebrow.

Stiles shrugged.

Peter gave a sideways sort of nod like Stiles had made a fair argument. He stood and rammed his fist into the wall several times. The best rocks from the wall’s rubble, he collected and tossed one at a time to Stiles, who began juggling them as Hayden dropped her book and stalked to the cell.

Peter crossed his arms and leaned against the damaged wall. Stiles continued juggling, using his power just enough to keep the jagged edges from hitting his palms hard enough to hurt or cut.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Hayden hissed.

“Juggling.” Stiles scoffed, but just a little since he was mostly juggling for real.

Peter motioned to Stiles with one hand.

Hayden growled, but impotently since she couldn’t do much about Stiles. She returned to her book.

“Where did you learn to juggle?” Peter asked.

“Youtube, obviously.”

“When?”

“You remember when I used to be single and afraid to leave the house?”

“Really?”

Stiles shrugged again. He’d wasted a lot of time back then. Random online tutorials had felt productive in comparison. He knew he wasn’t supposed to call the time “wasted,” and he knew that tangible results weren’t the only valid measure of usefulness. He knew he didn’t have to be useful to be valuable.

Knowing and feeling were different things.

 _Update?_ Stiles asked Derek.

_Not yet. I’ll let you know._

Touchy. Even chastising, Derek was usually calmer these days. What had him so irritable?

The itch between Derek’s shoulder blades. Not physical. He’d tried to scratch it. Back when it began, when Stiles concocted a plan Derek couldn’t talk him out of. Both because he’d promised to support Stiles and because he had no better ideas.

Derek wasn’t an idea guy. His plans, when he’d made them, were brutal, straightforward, ineffective. He didn’t like being away from Stiles so long, sleeping in their beds alone, eating with Noah alone in his office. Letting Theo hold Stiles captive when Derek had strength enough to rip his entire pack to pieces and set Stiles free. Pretending to search for Stiles in vain when he knew exactly how to find him.

 _You’re getting better at that._ Derek indicated with a mental wave how Stiles had settled into his thoughts. _Stop it._

_Sorry._

Stiles retreated into his own mind.

Peter was staring with too little expression to read clearly, but his eyes had narrowed.

Stiles raised his hands and furrowed his brows in the near-universal sign for, “What?”

Peter shook his head.

Stiles resumed juggling.

A knock on the door, in a now familiar pattern the chimeras used every time, signaled the arrival of Hayden’s relief. She set an old receipt in her book and left without acknowledging Peter or Stiles, though she waved to Corey as he entered carrying a large paper bag.

Corey had been the only one to answer when Stiles asked why they’d transitioned from two guards to one, even if all he said was, “We have other things to take care of too, and since we sorted things out, we can let you two out to fight if anything goes wrong,” which wasn’t much of an answer at all.

“I didn’t know you could juggle,” Corey said today as he pulled two tupperware containers and metal forks from the bag and passed them to Peter carefully through an open slot built into the fence.

“I’m a fucking clown.” Stiles winked so Corey would know he meant it as a joke.

“Like a moron or like a Joker thing?” Corey asked.

“Hell, I didn’t even think of that.”

“How?”

Stiles shrugged.

Peter answered for him, “As previously stated, he’s a fucking clown.”

“Yeah, I no longer like that joke, actually.”

Corey chuckled and unpacked his own lunch.

Stiles dropped his rocks so he could eat too, on the floor since he and Peter had agreed not to risk food over their meager bedding.

The container was warm. Corey must have brought it right over. Stiled pried off the lid to what was actually not tupperware at all, but a small baking dish, to uncover a warm and cheesy lasagna.

“Did you make these?” Stiles asked as he began to eat. With his mouth full, he added, “It’s really good.”

“My mom helped. I hate ricotta, so the cheese is all mozzarella.”

“Who does she think is eating them?”

“Study group.” Corey shrugged, but stiffly. He must have a hard time lying to his mother. “I told her it wasn’t a big deal, but she’s noticed me packing sandwiches and stuff a few other times and wanted to help me bring a ‘special treat.’ Lasagna is her favorite food. I might also be supposed to cook it for her birthday now since I know how. She didn’t say that, but she didn’t not say that.”

“Definitely make her lasagna,” Peter advised.

The other chimeras typically tossed bags of fast food at Stiles and Peter once or twice a day, but Corey said it was too expensive.

“Thanks. And thank her too,” Stiles said.

“I will. I mean, I did already, but I’ll tell her you liked it.”

“You’re way too nice for Theo’s pack.”

“It’s fine since I’m usually invisible. Tracy handles most of the threatening and fighting.”

“Who is she threatening?”

“Cole. Who do you think?”

Stiles winced; that should have been obvious. “Is she writing too slowly?”

This time, Corey grimaced. “She started writing in code. Hayden thinks the parts she wrote normally were to get Theo hooked so he’d negotiate more for her cypher.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. And she’s not scared enough of Tracy.”

Peter asked, “What does Cole want?”

Corey pointed to Stiles. “Theo said no, but he’s getting frustrated.”

“Kill her before she finishes frustrated or hand me over frustrated?”

“With Theo, it can be hard to tell, but he knows your pack is too strong to cross.” His voice trailed off oddly on that sentence.

“But?” Stiles pressed.

“Not ‘but’ so much as ‘for now.’” Corey frowned. “I don’t think he likes working with you. Or maybe he just doesn’t like being weaker than you.”

“I don’t like him either, so we’re even.” Stiles tried to say it flippantly, but still frowned through it. If even Corey thought Theo was biding his time until he could take Stiles’ pack out, then this bad idea could be worse than he thought, depending mostly on how long it took Theo to get whatever power he thought would defeat Stiles’ pack.   
When they finished eating, Peter took the cot, and Stiles gathered his rocks before returning to the cold, hard floor. He suspected he could convince Peter to let Stiles use the bed more, but that wasn’t a power he wanted to use against his friend.

Then again, Peter had spent far less time claiming Stiles wasn't ready to fight than the rest of the pack wasted on keeping Stiles from tasks as minor as driving or standing for extended periods of time. He might even call Stiles on it if he tried to use his knee as an excuse when he didn't need to.

Stiles lifted a rock with his mind and tried to push it between the links of the fence. It stuck like it had hit a solid wall. With his hand, Stiles tossed a smaller pebble, and it passed through and out of the cell unimpeded.

When Stiles threw the rock, he let it go. When he pushed objects with his power, he didn’t have to. He’d never needed to hurl anything out of range of his telekinesis, so he just held onto it and kept pushing. When he shattered and rebuilt objects, he maintained his hold the whole time. If he let go, he wouldn’t be able to fit the pieces together right. A single mistake on a molecular level could make the thing break apart again, and Stiles couldn’t perceive anything at such a small scale. His power handled that for him instinctively.

Holding something with his mind wasn’t the same as with his hand. Telekinesis had form only as much as thoughts did. Stiles could imagine it into a near-solid force, and he could clearly manipulate objects with it, but it wasn’t like wrapping a fist around a rock. Stiles could wrap his mind around a solid object to shatter it, or he could pass a thought through the air of a room to sweep out gas without disturbing the air or people.

Those didn’t seem the same at all. Stiles scrunched his nose.

He lifted a rock with the power of his club talisman again. He pushed against it from below as he let go, like striking the rock with a hammer in midair. It flew up a few feet and fell. It worked.

Next, he aimed a rock at the fence to telekinetically punt it through. It veered to the left and struck the wall instead. Like kicking a ball, if the impact angle was off, it wouldn’t fly straight.

He brought the rock directly to the barrier this time and knocked it lightly, just to see if it would pass when propelled by his power but not in contact with his psychic energy.

It flew between the links and to the floor outside the cell.

Corey gasped. “How did you do that?”

“A bit ineffectively. Didn’t have much force at all.” Stiles hadn’t meant it to, but Corey couldn’t know that.

Stiles couldn’t bring the rock back any other way, so he shoved his arm through the feeding hole, careful not to touch the metal and electrocute himself on it. They had learned the danger there when Peter tried to rip the fence apart in a fit of impotent rage that had passed by the time he recovered from the electrocution.

Now that he knew it was possible, Stiles could practice his aim within the cell rather than risk losing his rocks. Peter could make more, but there was only so much cell wall to wreck. Could Peter break through the wall entirely? Stiles almost asked, but Corey would hear.

Corey’s eyes were wide. Peter wore a wild grin.

“What about you?” Corey asked Peter.

“What about me?” Peter sneered.

“If he’s practicing with his powers, what have you been doing?”

“Trying to catch up on sleep.”

“That’s a lie,” Corey said. “You’ve had your eyes closed a lot, but you don’t sleep much.”

Peter bared his teeth.

Stiles asked, “Why do you want to know? And why would we tell you?”

“I’m just curious, and I did tell you about Cole.”

“Ours is not a transactional relationship, Corey. We’re your prisoners.”

“You know I’d let you out if you were in trouble!”

“Do we?” Stiles asked.

Peter said, “I think we do, in his case, anyway.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize we trusted Corey.”

“Not fully, but that much. He did make us lasagna.”

Stiles laughed. “In that case, do you want to tell the class why you’ve been not sleeping?”

Peter shrugged. “It’s not working, so I guess it makes no difference. I’ve been trying to find the pieces of my old bond with Dimitri. I don’t think they’re there anymore.”

“What the hell?” Stiles threw a rock at him. “First of all, I told you it wouldn’t work. Second of all, if it had, that would be bad! Terrible. What if he controlled you again?”

“He didn't. He can’t. It didn’t work.”

“I’m still mad at you for trying.”

“I thought it might save you from suffering his use of Gregson’s eye.”

“I know what the fuck you thought, and I know you know what the fuck I thought about you trying that bullshit.”

“Obviously, it was too little to dissuade me.”

“Why?”

“It would get me out of this cell, for one.”

“That’s not—”

“And you don’t get to decide for me when the risk is mine to take.”

“I’m not going to thank you for it.”

“I never expected you would. You might have noticed, I didn’t admit to it until I had determined it wouldn’t work.”

“At least you don’t have to be afraid he’ll show up back in your head, I guess.”

“I do treasure such comforts.”

“And it means he probably told the truth when he said it had to do with having a strong relationship or close proximity. Or both.”

Corey asked, “Wait, are you making his excuses for him now? I thought you were mad.”

“I am mad! Shut up. You too!” Stiles shouted at Peter when he opened his mouth to speak. “Both of you shut up while I be mad for a while.”

With that, Stiles settled onto the floor again to practice shooting rocks at the wall.

The irregular surfaces made aiming difficult. Stiles tried matching the shape of the blow to that of the rock, since he wasn’t confined to using a fist or hand. It helped some, but studying the shape and matching it and aligning the blow took too much focus. He couldn’t manage that in a fight.

He was essentially kicking the rocks with his brain, or striking a cue ball with telekinesis as his cue stick. Maybe if he swung them more like a proper throw…

Danger.

Something was wrong.

Stiles couldn’t help. He was busy throwing rocks at the wall—which, what the fuck?—but more importantly, where was Derek?

Gregson. It was her, seeing him through her magic eye bespelled by his blood.

 _Gregson’s in danger,_ Stiles sent to Derek.

Derek was on his way even before he thought, _Didn’t talk to your dad yet._

_It can obviously wait._

_I know._ Derek snarled aloud as he ran. He wasn’t far, but he should have stayed with Sara.

 _Stop blaming yourself,_ Stiles thought to Derek. _I can’t tell what went wrong._

_I’ll call if I need you, or when I know what happened and it’s safe to talk._

Stiles tried to focus on his rocks.

Peter sat beside him and set a hand on Stiles’ shoulder. Stiles leaned into the touch, but comfort was too little against the threat of getting Gregson hurt.

Gregson’s accidental telepathic leavings had never lasted more than a moment, and most had been a single sentence slipped innocuously in with his own thoughts. It was normal that her mind hadn’t stuck around to leave details. The clear sense of danger made this the strongest signal she’d left him yet. That could be bad. Adrenaline amplified psychic power in the short term. She was in danger. Stiles had probably gotten her fucking killed.

Gregson had planned to make the eye easy to steal, and she had agreed never to be alone until the plan had worked. What if it was all too little? What if Haha, No killed her outright before even trying to steal the eye?

Peter moved his arm across Stiles’ back to his other shoulder so he could pull him into a half hug.

Stiles couldn’t focus on his rocks.

He hadn’t found a way to break out yet. Corey wouldn’t release them. Having the pack try to free Stiles and Peter would only get more people hurt. Stiles couldn't do anything. He couldn't help.

Gregson might be dying or dead.

Peter used both arms now to hold Stiles even though he couldn't help either. He pressed Stiles’ face against his chest, so Stiles listened to the beat of Peter’s heart.


	4. Walls Are Built to Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry about the absolute nonsense of the formatting. I used google docs to write this originally and apparently I have no idea how to make it not go bonkers when I export that out. p sure it's been an issue in previous stories too, but i had no idea where it came from then. anyway, paragraphs may or may not be indented; i don't even know anymore. my reasons for not fixing it are A) i must preserve bold and italics at all costs, B) the fix i tried after exporting to word didn't work, C) i was not about to retype 70K words by hand because i was upset about some indents

Haha, No’s agents didn’t rob Gregson. They kidnapped her.

Derek arrived too late to stop them. He found Cat on the ground, unconscious, forgotten, and injured. The bleeding stopped before Derek reached her. Once Derek woke her, Cat seemed more angry than hurt.

Cat growled, gingerly pressing her fingers against the wound at her temple.

Do you need to stay behind?” Derek asked.

Not a chance.” She scrunched her nose. “Do you smell that?”

A bitter odor lingered in the air. Derek barely caught Cat’s scent, or that of her blood, past it. He didn’t smell Gregson at all.

At first, he thought to follow the bitterness, but it led nowhere, dispersing into the air and leaving behind no hint of Gregson’s scent or its own.

“I didn’t see which way they went,” Cat said.

Derek nodded; he hadn’t expected her to. He was just glad they’d cared too little to kill her. Or been in a hurry. Maybe they noticed Derek coming. He itched to chase, especially if their lead was small, but the risk of running the wrong direction kept him rooted until Allison arrived.

Allison deftly found the tracks the kidnappers had disguised as they escaped. She showed Derek and Cat how the dirt showed signs of being swept as she began following the trail.

They moved out of town and through the preserve, relying on Allison’s tracking. Cat’s claws unsheathed when she let her mind stray. Then she would shake her head and close her hands into fists until she forgot herself and let it happen again. She had a longer history with Watchtower, and with Haha, No, than Derek and Stiles.

“Stop,” Derek whispered.

They did.

“I smell her.” No, not quite. “I smell her blood.”

Cat straightened her back and took a deep breath. She nodded.

Derek followed the scent to the leaves of a sagebrush, now speckled in darkening red. Whatever Sorokin’s followers used to disguise their scents only worked in proximity. Most scent trails faded quickly, but blood left a physical trace with a scent of its own. Derek pointed out the blood to Allison and Cat.

Allison nodded firmly. Cat had already noticed it and begun searching for more.

Stiles hoped Derek killed the villains for hurting Gregson. The way Derek flinched away from that thought worried Stiles. It was noble, how Scott and Derek avoided taking lives, but Stiles preferred to see their enemies dead all the same.

_Are you going to kill Haha, No?_ Stiles asked Derek.

_No. Leave me alone._

As much as Stiles wanted to argue, Derek needed to focus on saving Gregson’s life. Unlike Derek, Stiles couldn’t visit his partner’s mind without bringing too much attention to himself and becoming a distraction. Derek had greater finesse and sensitivity both, which only amplified the feeling of Stiles crowding into his mind, essentially banging pots and pans and shouting to announce his presence.

Groaning aloud, Stiles practiced with his little rocks. He almost had it down, the technique to let the rock go and propel it while disconnected from his consciousness, from his power.

He had managed to obliquely ask Peter how much of the wall he thought he could make into juggling rocks, but Peter had answered outright that there wasn’t a hollow space on the other side of the wall, just earth. Their cell was both underground and at the edge of whatever facility the chimeras had taken over.

“Is that fun, or do you need a book or something?” Theo asked.

It was the first shift Theo had deigned to watch the prisoners himself. At first, he read on his phone with his feet propped on a spare chair. Then Stiles’ practice had taken his interest for several minutes before he spoke.

Had Corey told him Stiles could get a rock through the fence this way?

“If you’d come sooner, you could have watched me do stretches and run in place a little. It’s like that.”

“You need to train your power, and it atrophies with disuse,” Theo mused.

“Much the opposite of my patience,” Peter said through a dangerous, toothy grin.

“Hayden said she explained it to you. I talked to your pack.”

“About how you’re a double-crossing piece of shit?” Stiles demanded.

Theo sighed. “About how this works out best for all of us. If a Watchtower agent is involved then it seems a more authentic imprisonment. Your plan works. I get Cole’s research. Later, we can kill her, together, if you like. It’s a win-win, for us that is. Cole will have to take the L.”

“We have no reason to believe you’d side with us over Cole, or that you won’t betray everyone but yourself.”

“My pack likes you. You helped us. You saved Corey’s life, and nearly lost your own doing it. Jenneva Cole’s research can be repurposed to serve us, but she herself aligns more with the Dread Doctors’ philosophy than ours.” Theo shrugged. “Even if I want her to work for me, I need to consider my pack. They’re struggling to keep you here even knowing we’ll set you free soon. Your friend was taken, so it won’t be long now. It still may not be soon enough. Cole’s started talking about studying you again, but I won’t let her near you alone.”

“Was any of that supposed to help?” Stiles asked. “Didn’t you say before that you wouldn’t let Cole near me at all?”

“You’ll believe what you want.”

“Let us go and say we escaped.”

“I don’t know how you would. When you figure it out, leave some evidence behind to make it more convincing for Cole.”

“Call Scott to rescue me.”

Theo twisted his face like he’d smelled something curdled. “I’d rather not.” After a pause, he added, “Besides, your plan isn’t done yet, is it?”

Stiles scowled. His plan had worked as bait. Locking himself away made Haha, No confident enough to take the bait. The rest had gone wrong. They were supposed to take the eye, not Gregson.

“My plan is finished,” Stiles said.

Theo sneered. “Then I’ll talk to Scott and tell Cole he’s beginning to get suspicious of me.”

He stood, and for a moment, Stiles thought Theo meant to leave them alone, but Josh was waiting outside the door.

Theo turned back before he left to say, “You could be great, Stiles, if you could bother to commit to anything.”

Stiles threw a rock at his head, but Theo was already gone.

Josh caught the rock instead because it would have hit him in the face. “You should learn to throw around corners.” He tossed the rock in his hand as he took his place at the table.

“I can’t see around corners.” Or reach, until they deactivated the cell’s psychic barrier.

“You can only move things you can see?”

Stiles thought it over. “No.”

If he had to see it, he would never fit together the things he broke. He had swept gas from a room without stopping to study every corner of the space. Things he held stayed in his mental grasp if he turned away. So much of what he did was based on instinct and guesses. Stiles needed to begin thinking about his power more if he wanted to learn to use it better. In the past, his training had focused on strength, not technique.

Josh fiddled with the rock a moment. He propped his foot on his knee, dropped it back to the floor, and lifted it again to rest in the second chair.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Josh said.

“Sorry enough to let us out?” Stiles asked.

Josh shook his head. “I’m not more sorry for you than I am afraid of Theo.”

“Why?”

Josh’s eye shifted from the rock in his hands to Stiles’ face and back to his hands. “You don’t think he’s scary?”

“I think he’s a smug asshole who needs to be punched in the face.”

Josh bit his lip to hold back a chuckle. “He’s that too.”

“Did he tell you not to tell me about him?”

“Yes.”

Stiles frowned. He’d hoped for a loophole there.

“He’s not like us,” Josh said anyway. “Whatever the Doctors did to him… works, just maybe not how they’d hoped. The rest of us would have died without him, but he didn’t really need us.”

“He’s awfully intent on keeping you around for someone who doesn’t need you.”

“You don’t have to need something to want it.” Josh tossed the rock back through the fence to Stiles with enough precision to make Stiles wonder if werewolf powers covered that too.

**.x.**

Scott hadn’t rescued them. Stiles tried to aim his rocks at what looked like a control panel outside the cell. Corey seemed the one least likely to run to Theo, but Stiles still made sure his rocks landed in random parts of the room or bounced off the fence more often than not, just in case.

“Ow.” Corey winced after Stiles hit him accidentally. “Watch it.”

“Sorry.”

“Didn’t you used to aim at the wall?”

“Got bored. Couldn’t concentrate.” Stiles shrugged.

Corey sighed and moved to sit nearer the far wall. He held a beat up paperback in one hand and took notes with the other. Homework, most likely.

The next rock got so close Stiles nearly celebrated too soon, but it bounced off the edge of the console and under the table.

Derek and the others were arguing again. The same argument nearly every hour.

“Keep your voice down,” Derek growled as Stiles checked in.

“They can’t hear me,” Cat insisted.

“He’s mad we outnumber him.” Allison held her bow with an arrow nocked and scanned the surrounding woods as she spoke.

Even Derek saw the disturbance here. The ground was a mess of smudged prints and shoved dirt. The branches of several nearby bushes had been bent or broken. A smear of blood oozed Sara’s scent from the bark of a nearby tree.

“I think she fought them.” Allison frowned. “She knows the plan. Why try to escape?”

“She knows this isn’t the plan. They could be hurting her,” Derek said.

“This isn’t enough blood for a new wound.” Cat held her hand over the stain Sara had left behind. “She’s been bleeding less. Maybe she needed to reopen the wound to keep the trail going.”

Allison nodded. “She had to manage it without arousing suspicion. Faking an escape attempt makes it look less like a trap as well.”

“They don’t need her,” Derek tried again, “just the eye. We could take her back and pretend to lose or miss the eye in the fighting.”

“We’ve been through this,” Allison snapped, though her eyes never strayed from their searching. “If you can’t stay on task, go back and let Cat and I handle this.”

Derek snarled silently.

Allison’s voice softened, if barely. “We can’t afford to be at odds if it comes to a confrontation, or when we reach Sorokin’s hiding place.”

Cat set her palm against Derek’s arm. “You know we would have lost them if not for Sara. Her part is bigger than we thought, but now that we know, let her do it.”

Derek tugged his arm from Cat’s reach but didn’t argue further.

“All this arguing makes it clear that I need you two to follow my lead,” Allison said. “I know it’s hard. Sara’s our friend, and Watchtower hurt you all so badly. But we need to work together, not get in each other’s way.”

“You want to be the leader?” Cat asked. Her voice was wary, but not hostile.

“If that’s what you need to call it. You and Derek can’t be objective here. Do you deny it?”

“No,” Cat said.

Derek shook his head.

“I guess that makes you the leader.” Cat sighed.

“Derek?” Allison asked.

Stiles interjected, _If you need—_

Derek cut him off. _I’m fine. Thank you for trying._

He pushed Stiles’ consciousness away, but Stiles didn’t stay in his own head this time. He tried to be sneaky about returning so soon.

Aloud, Derek said, “I’ll follow your lead, Allison. You’re right, and you’re the only one of us trained for something like this.”

Allison set a hand on Derek’s shoulder. “Thank you. I know it’s not easy. I promise, we’re going to save her.”

Derek prepared to study the kidnappers again. Only one shifter in the group, which seemed too little to Derek. He had picked out the shifter’s partner already by the way the two of them hovered together near the edges of the group. Derek and Cat kept as far from those two as possible.

The rest wore something like Watchtower uniforms. Most likely, they had begun as their old uniforms and been altered or replaced as the year went by. Most still wore their standard-issue boots; they were sturdy enough to have lasted. Those who still had their jackets had new patches on them. Derek never got close enough to study the patches in detail, not with a shifter patrolling the group, but he suspected Sorokin had crafted new squads and experiments since forming his faction. Several of the soldiers wore patches sewn to hats or civilian jackets.

The bonded pair still wore rooks, white for shifter and black for human. Derek hadn’t meant to look for them and almost gave his position away when he stumbled on the pair brushing away their party’s tracks.

Sorokin’s followers needed to believe they’d gotten away with it, otherwise they may avoid leading the enemy to their base.

Stiles wanted to save Gregson, but he wanted to kill Haha, No just as much, Maybe more. He kept out of their arguments.

_If you want to stick to your plan, stop trying to escape,_ Derek thought.

Stiles yelped.

_I told you, you’re loud._ There would normally be more teasing in that, but worrying about Gregson had Derek on edge.

_I was trying to be quiet._

_You failed._

With a grimace, Stiles shooed off Peter’s concern over his yelp.

_I have failed in several ways._

Gregson was in danger. Stiles was probably in danger, and he missed his boyfriend. And freedom. As much as Stiles liked Peter, he was sick of being stuck in a room with him. At least Watchtower had let him out for exercise occasionally.

_Your thoughts get fucked up when you’re cranky,_ Derek thought, mentally pushing Stiles back to his own mind, more firmly this time than the last. _I love you, but I need to focus._

_Love you too._ Stiles focused on his own surroundings to make it easier for Derek to block him.

Corey was sweeping the scattered rocks back into the cell with an old broom. He kept glancing at the door with wide eyes while his hands shook in a white-knuckled grip on the broom handle.

Stiles glanced at Peter, who only shrugged.

“You okay, buddy?” Stiles asked Corey.

Corey jumped. He shook his head with a slow, deliberate exhale. “Cole is on her way. Scott might be too. Theo said to be ready for a fight, but I’m not a fighter. I just hide.”

He resumed sweeping hard enough to shed several brittle old broom bristles, which he swept aside with Stiles’ rocks.

“Why are you hiding those?” Stiles pointed to the rocks now assembled in the front of the cell.

“You almost had it earlier. If Cole knows you can escape, she’ll want you in a real cell.” Corey stashed the broom back in the closet. Stiles hadn’t imagined they had actual cleaning supplies in there. It seemed too mundane.

Stiles must have winced because Peter chuckled. At him, not at Corey. Stiles felt his evil, evil mirth like a trickle of extremely annoying water running down his spine, invasive in a way Derek’s thoughts never were.

“You saw through our plan all along,” Peter said to Corey.

Corey shrugged, pacing the room with too much energy, hands tapping at the table, his phone, the wall.

“Why didn’t you tell Theo?” Stiles asked.

“He never asked.”

“Really?” Stiles instilled as much doubt, for both Theo and Corey, into his voice as possible.

“He told me not to tell him what you do in the cell so he can’t reveal anything to Cole. The rest of us aren’t allowed to speak with her, just him and sometimes Tracy. I haven’t even _seen_ Cole since Theo made the new dea—” Corey cut off to stare at the door.

“Someone’s here,” Peter whispered for Stiles’ benefit.

A crash sounded from somewhere far off in whatever building or complex the chimeras had them in. Stiles wasn’t even going to get to ask if Corey had been about to say ‘new deal’ and what the hell that meant.

“More than one,” Corey corrected as he blinked out of sight. He appeared again, digging through his bag and muttering, “Shit,” repeatedly.

“Let us out so we can help,” Stiles said.

“I can’t.” He upended the backpack to better dig through its contents.

“That sounds like fighting. I thought letting us out was the plan in case of fighting.”

“It _was!”_ Corey straightened up and hurled a notebook at the wall. “Theo knew I was going to, and he ordered me not to today. I can’t.” Corey almost said more but shook his head and camouflaged himself again as he reached for the table once more.

“I know where you are,” Peter said to the closet a moment later.

Corey answered, “Cole is human. She won’t.”

Stiles’ hearing wasn’t precise enough to pinpoint Corey’s location by his voice, much less his breathing or heartbeat, but Cole might have access to tools he didn’t.

Stiles asked, “Isn’t the closet a bit obvious?”

“My options are limited. Either escape now or pretend I ran off. Please.”

Something toppled in the closet, followed by a soft curse, quickly swallowed by crashes and shouts from farther out.

“I _am_ sick of this,” Stiles grunted.

Stiles had the trick of it now, letting go of the rocks to throw them instead of actually ramming them into targets. His aim had improved after all that practice. And he had almost gotten it. He knew almost exactly where to throw it now. He could disable the electrified fence.

The first rock missed, but he didn’t have to feign boredom now. He adjusted his aim and tried again. Closer. Again. Overcorrected. Again.

The rock struck the control. The cell powered down.

Stiles reached for the fence, but Peter beat him to it.

A good thing. The door had opened as Stiles focused on his throws. Cole stood, backlit but clear enough even for his weak human eyes. Stiles froze.

“Stiles,” Peter grunted as the thin metal fence ripped apart, no match for his strength without the electricity to weaken him.

Stiles snapped into action. He reached his mind beyond the cell to grab Cole and slammed her against, then through, the wall to her left.

_That_ part of the room wasn’t surrounded by solid earth.

Cole cried out at the impact and coughed after he released her.

Stiles stepped through the ruined fence and toward Cole.

A gun fired in the hall. Stiles flinched at the noise, but it's volume fully knocked Peter a step back.

Hayden staggered through the door gripping her side. Blood seeped past her fingers.

“Corey?” she gasped.

“Not hurt,” Stiles answered with one eye on Cole as she struggled to stand. “You are.”

Hayden growled, but her eyes only flickered weakly as she staggered forward.

“The shooter,” Peter warned.

Stiles grabbed Hayden’s free hand in his and pushed her toward the closet. She really was weak; he didn’t even have to supplement his strength telekinetically to move her.

He had focused his power instead on pushing a wall of pure force at the doorway. With reflexes too slow to catch a bullet, creating a telekinetic shield was his only hope, assuming it was strong enough and solid enough to stop a bullet. Stiles had never tried before. It was all he could do. It had to be enough.

Invisible shield before him, Stiles stepped forward into the hall to face down—

Rafael McCall.

“Did you shoot my friend, you dick?”

Rafael had the indecency to look exasperated. “Which one is your friend?”

“Teenage girl. Dark hair. Wolf-jaguar chimera. Bleeding from a fucking bullet wound.”

“I thought she was keeping you prisoner,” Rafael admitted with a grimace.

“She was, dumbass.”

Peter spun Stiles by his shoulder toward Cole as she found her feet. She had pulled a black box from her pocket and held it out toward them. It was a speaker.

Stiles had just enough time to say, “Oh, hell,” before a shattering psychic blast crashed outward with a painfully high-pitched whine.

The pain lashed out from Stiles straight through Derek’s thin block like a wrecking ball through tissue paper.

Derek landed on his face. A tree root bruised his forearm, but it healed as he pushed himself upright. Allison took his elbows to help, but he shook her off.

“Stiles,” Derek grunted. “Cole got to him.”

Lesser pain pierced Stiles’ thigh above his slow-healing knee.

“Stay with us,” Peter growled, pulling his claws from Stiles’ leg.

Cole’s speaker lay in the rubble. It blew itself out, too weak for the sheer force of sound and power Cole had pushed through it. Stiles’ ears still rung with the echo of Cole’s attack.

Stiles crouched on the floor between Rafael, moaning and disarmed, and Peter, red-eyed and pushing himself upright.

“I wouldn’t,” Cole said, aiming Rafael’s sidearm at Stiles.

Stiles tried to push the gun from her grasp. Nothing happened. Cole smirked, so _that_ happened, but nothing telekinetic did.

The dust had settled around them. Stiles had broken the wall into an old operating theater. Cobwebs draped between counters and the cabinets above them and crossed the walkways to the operating table at the room’s center. A layer of dust showed disturbance only where the blast and new rubble had struck. The medical instruments beside the operating table looked better suited to torture than surgery. That worked for Stiles. They would make better weapons.

Stiles had more power than what Cole had forced on him. As she gloated over him, he activated the spade talisman beneath his left eye.

Cole froze mid-word, not that he’d been listening.

Stiles pushed off with his good leg and rushed past Cole. He snatched a serrated saw speckled with what he suspected was more than rust and spun back around to find Peter’s claws clean through Cole’s throat.

Peter grinned devilishly, eyes searing red. Cole regained motor function in time to give a hoarse, gurgling, failure of a scream as she collapsed.

“You know I’m supposed to avoid killing,” Stiles said, trying very hard to regret Cole’s death. He managed only to regret letting Scott and Derek down.

“It was faster than the infection you were about to give her.” Peter motioned with bloodied fingers to Stiles’ impromptu weapon.

“My options were limited, and she probably had a tetanus shot.” He kept the saw for now. As the ringing faded from his ears, Stiles again heard fighting in the distance.

Corey appeared beside Peter, supporting Hayden. Both had been invisible a second before. Blood soaked much of Hayden’s shirt. Too much.

“She needs help,” Corey pleaded.

Peter leaned over to check her back. “Bullet’s inside. Stiles, pull it out.”

“Here? Now?” Assuming Stiles even could; he didn't know how long whatever Cole did would block his telekinesis.

“She can’t heal until you do.”

Someone screamed not nearly far enough away.

“Please.” Corey’s eyes were big and hopeful, and he was such a terrible fit for Theo’s evil chimera pack.

Hayden coughed out a weak spray of blood.

Stiles brushed aside some rocks as a test. It worked.

“Lay her down,” Stiles ordered Corey. To the others he said, “Guard the door.”

Stiles had already realized he didn't need a line of sight to use his power. Tentatively, he reached for Hayden and felt the difference when he touched her; he could feel _through_ telekinesis. He tried not to shove anything important, using the tiniest sliver of power possible to root around her guts to locate the bullet. Hayden flinched and moaned, but Stiles didn’t need that to know he failed. Unconsciously, he set his hand against her arm to lean in as he worked.

Pain.

Hayden was in pain. Stiles felt it, through the talisman on his wrist. Pain radiated, but maybe he could use it to help track the bullet.

“It’s in pieces,” he said as he felt them, delicately taking each one in his mind’s grasp.

“Pull them one at a time,” Peter said, leaning back in from the doorway. “If she passes out from shock, we’ll have to carry her.”

“I guess I’ll be honored that you believed I could do work this complex all at once,” Stiles muttered.

Moving several objects on its own was simple enough, but these were embedded in a person whose life depended on surgical precision Stiles wasn’t sure he had.

“Should you be talking?” Corey asked.

“No, shut up.”

Stiles started with the largest fragment. Hayden jerked about, crying out in pain as Stiles dislodged it from the muscle in her abdomen.

“Stay still,” Stiles ordered, pressing her back against the table.

“I’m trying,” Hayden grunted.

Corey pressed down against her shoulders, but Stiles had her now. Still, she trembled as the fragment inched past the torn flesh of the entry wound. It clattered only lightly when Stiles dropped it to the floor.

The next piece by size had lodged into her hip bone, so Stiles skipped it for now. Slowly, too slowly, he guided broken shards of metal back along their entry paths to exit her body and land unceremoniously on the floor.

Hayden sobbed, unable to move, still unable even to heal. Stiles needed all his concentration to do as little further damage as possible while removing the bullet. Though his talisman allowed him to sense her pain and would have let him take it, he could not spare the attention.

Stiles asked Corey, “Can you take her pain?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how. I’m sorry.”

“Peter,” Stiles said, “help.”

Peter shoved Corey toward the door and took over his place at Hayden’s side. He took Hayden’s hand in his, and the veins climbing his hand and forearm slowly turned black.

She would heal, Stiles reminded himself. She would heal only after he removed the bullet.

Hayden’s scream filled the room, replaced its air, tore its way out of Hayden’s throat and down Stiles’, into his lungs as he tried to breath, to focus.

The bullet dislodged from her hip and slid smoothly from her abdomen to the air where it fell to the floor.

Hayden’s scream transformed into a roar as her eyes glowed gold.

Stiles shoved his power through her healing flesh one last time to be sure he had them all.

“She’ll heal now.” Peter paused, staring at Hayden with brows furrowed, worried. “But not fast enough. We need to bandage the wound.”

Corey scurried into the adjoining room and returned a moment later, sweeping dust off the packaging of gauze and bandages and onto his own shirt. Even after stacking several layers of gauze pads, blood began seeping through before they even left the room. When they stood Hayden, her shirt bunched above the bandage. She stumbled, but Peter lifted her into his arms without waiting to see if she regained her balance.

“Thanks,” Corey said.

“I don’t have time to convince Stiles to leave her.”

Hayden patted Peter’s cheek but kept her teeth clenched tight rather than try to speak.

“You have a moment,” Stiles said. “I need something to help me walk.”

He began searching the room for a cane or stick. His knee worked fine now, but he had no way of telling how far he would have to walk or if he’d have to run as well. Maybe he should break the head off the broom.

Corey crossed through the broken wall and returned a few seconds later holding an old cane. “This wasn’t his main one, but I think it might still have been the Surgeon’s.”

“Ew.” Stiles grimaced.

“Yeah.”

“His cane was a special sword though, right? Why have a spare?”

“Either a decoy, or he really did need it to walk.”

Corey handed the cane over, and Stiles accepted it grudgingly. Had they gotten lucky the Surgeon brought the real one to fight them at the old Hale property? Would the pack have survived if he hadn’t? For that matter, what had they done with the Surgeon’s cane after the battle? Stiles had been somewhat distracted by his extended hospitalization and never thought to ask.

“Feels dirty.” Stiles tested the cane and, sure enough, it was also a sword. He wouldn’t need that rusty saw.

“It is dirty,” Corey tugged off a cobweb. “But we gotta go.”

Nodding, Stiles asked, “Corey, can you invisify to scout ahead? We need to get Hayden out without fighting.”

Corey stepped back against the wall where he faded from sight.

“He says I should follow his voice,” Peter said.

Stiles trailed Peter into the long, gray hall and past Rafael, who clenched his jaw over Hayden as they passed.

“Can’t any other shifters around hear Corey too?” Stiles asked.

“He’s turning back and whispering the directions softly enough that anyone who heard him would hear us, and all our heartbeats before they heard him anyway.”

“Super hearing is so convenient and so inconvenient.”

“Sh. He’s _whispering.”_

Crashes and shouts still sounded in the distance, but Corey kept them headed away from the fighting.

“Don’t shoot.” Peter gave Rafael a snide glare. “Lydia’s just ahead.”

“Lydia?” Stiles asked.

“I suspect she’s here to save us. Well, save you.”

Lydia turned the next corner. She wore jeans and a loose jacket and had her hair tied back in a tight bun. She had come planning to fight.

“Stiles!” Then, as she registered the rest of their party, “Hayden! How badly is she hurt?”

“She’ll heal if we get her out of here.” Peter’s voice was oddly, forcibly still, like he worried its vibration might set Lydia off.

Lydia’s eyes narrowed, but she fell in next to Stiles as they continued moving.

“We can’t go the way I came,” she said. “I haven’t seen Kate, but there were berserkers. I got separated from the others while fighting them.”

“Corey is scouting the way for us,” Stiles explained.

Lydia nodded and glanced behind her to ask Rafael, “Are there more agents with you? They won’t be able to fight a berserker.”

Rafael frowned, but he didn’t answer.

“How did you find us?” Stiles whispered in response to Peter’s glare over all the talking.

Lydia pitched her voice to match his. “I followed Cole.”

“She was way ahead of you.”

“She’s dead. I didn’t follow her physically.”

Derek’s thoughts brushed Stiles’ lightly, testing.

_We’re escaping,_ Stiles told him.

_You were hurt._ Behind the words, Derek’s worry seeped through.

_I’ve had worse. We’re avoiding the fighting._ After a moment, Stiles added, _Cole’s dead._

Derek picked through Stiles’ recent memories to see Peter kill Cole.

_You’re out now,_ Derek thought. _Is the plan off?_

Stile frowned.

_You still want to find him,_ Derek accused, _even at Sara’s expense._

_We_ need _to find him._

_We need to save our friend._

_So do both!_

_What if I can’t?_

_You can. Derek, you’re the strongest person I know._

_You can’t flatter me into executing your schemes._

_I’m not. It’s true. You are._

_I’m weaker than you are._

_You know what I mean._

_Psychic proficiency won’t help with this, and I never learned to use it on anyone but you._

_Will obtuse density help? Because you’re good at that too._

Stiles focused on the hall a moment as Peter motioned them to stop, somewhat awkwardly since Hayden occupied both his arms. Lydia clenched Stiles’ arm hard enough to hurt, so he pried her fingers loose and held her shaking hand. After several long moments, Peter cocked his head and continued forward. Stiles never heard any threat, but he supposed he wouldn’t.

_Derek._ Stiles waited a moment to be sure Derek was listening.

Allison and Cat had taken over tracking and watching Derek so he could focus on Stiles.

“He’s back,” Derek said aloud, and Cat gave a thumbs up as Allison brushed her fingers against the snapped branches of a wild bush.

_I don’t think I can do what you are,_ Stiles thought once he knew Derek could focus on him. _I tried to guide what I became, and I accepted it because I doubt I have the power to reject it. I know neither of us can be who we were before Watchtower, or before we met, or before we first lost people we loved. I know people don’t work that way. I’m standing on the wall I’ve built from bricks forged in all those parts of my life. You’re the one working to mold better bricks than they gave you so you can build yourself into who you_ want _to be._

Derek didn’t know what to say. He wanted to argue that it felt less like working to build a new self than failing again and again and landing back in the rubble of exactly who he never wanted to be. He wanted to tease Stiles about his metaphor to deflect attention off himself. He wanted to thank Stiles for believing in him, for seeing strength in Derek even in his failures. He sent all of this together in a lump of tangled thought and half-repressed emotion, and overlapping it all, he sent the only words he knew that fit, _I love you._

_You’re not failing. It’s just the sort of project that never ends._

_I wish I could fix myself as easily as change the locks at the loft._

_What if we’re not supposed to be fixed? Maybe rebuilding yourself again and again is the only way to move forward._

_Then where would that leave you?_

_Somewhere weaker than you._

_You’re not weak, Stiles._

_Neither are you._

They settled back into their own minds with only a loose connection so each would know if the other ran into trouble.

Lydia raised her eyebrows in question. Stiles shook his head. Her eyebrows lowered enough to signify displeasure, but she kept her hand in his.

Peter stopped them again, this time closing his eyes to focus. They waited longer than the first time. Peter turned his hand to hold up one finger for a moment before returning it to grip Hayden’s shoulder. The gesture faced ahead, not behind to the group.

Lydia clenched Stiles’ hand tighter than she had his arm before.

Stiles wanted to ask what Peter was doing, or most likely, what Peter was listening to. He waited rather than risk covering the sound with his own voice.

Rafael tapped Stiles on the shoulder and pointed to Peter. Stiles held a finger upright in front of his lips. Rafael clenched his jaw but kept quiet.

Peter growled and continued forward.

“Peter?” Stiles asked.

“We’re too far out.”

Lydia said, “I heard—”

Peter shushed her as he turned another corner.

Lydia let it go, but Stiles caught her biting her lip. She kept glancing behind them.

Peter most likely heard the distant fighting, though Stiles could not. Lydia was another matter. She heard death.

Stiles thought, _If she could help, she wouldn’t let Peter shush her. It either won’t happen tonight, or it’s already too late._

He’d wanted to reassure himself. That didn’t work.

Corey stood just ahead, beside a ladder leading to a trap door. Stiles had no idea they’d been near an exit.

_I didn’t have to,_ he reminded himself. _I had the others to lead us out._ Then, with more force, he repeated, _I didn’t have to do it myself. It’s okay to let them help._ It still felt like he should have handled it.

Peter motioned for Corey to go first and waited for his signal before shifting his grip on Hayden so he could free one hand for climbing. She had passed out at some point.

The ladder led into a squat cement building with several heavy locks on the only door. They creaked as Corey turned them, but not nearly as loudly as the door itself when he tugged it open with a grunt.

“We don’t use this one,” Corey explained. “It’s too far out from anywhere we want to be.”

Stiles followed the others into an overgrown ditch and up a steep hill toward the road. Corey led them to the right, but Stiles glanced behind him past Rafael to the large, dark gate to the asylum just outside of town. He shivered, grateful they hadn’t had to break out of there.

Turning back, Stiles prepared to ask who had a phone to call for a ride, but Lydia was already dialing.

“Are we safe out here?” Stiles asked instead.

“I won’t consider us safe until we’re home surrounded by pack.” Peter eyed the sides of the road as they walked.

Lydia was describing their location to someone on the phone as a gas station came into view on the far side of the road ahead.

“Should we wait there?” Corey asked.

“Keep moving,” Peter insisted.

Stiles eyed Hayden. “She’s obviously hurt. If we go in and ask for anything but an ambulance, it’s going to be suspicious.”

“He could wave his badge,” Lydia motioned to Rafael.

“I can’t—” Rafael began but cut off as Lydia continued speaking.

“But I have a bad feeling about stopping. Just this once, I think Peter’s right.”

It was harder going, but they moved a ways off the road to avoid being seen. Stiles tried to keep the swearing under his breath. His knee had done so well up to this point. Not even a twinge in the tunnels. With luck, their ride would arrive before they made it fully back into town. Failing that, Stiles supposed Peter must know some back alleys. Maybe ones with benches. Stiles knew alleys didn’t have benches; things didn’t have to be real to be wished for.

The cane helped more than nothing. It still skidded off rocks or sunk into mud several times. Stiles tried to form a semi-nebulous telekinetic cushion at the bottom of the cane, adjusting to the lay of the land as he used it. He found the right malleability to let it shape itself to the jutting rocks or shifting mud as it made contact.

Was the cane the only thing he could hold? What about his leg itself? Could he stop the pressure from reaching his knee?

Stiles tried forming a sort of boot around his leg to carry his weight and compensate for the terrain. It left him lopsided since it also raised his foot somewhat. He did the base of the other foot to balance it out without stiffening his ankle.

Stopped.

He was walking on air.

His exertions left Stiles lagging behind the pack, so none of the others had noticed. Stiles shaped his power to his form and held himself up. Levitating. Holding himself, he pushed himself forward and nearly toppled. He tried again, this time trying to maintain his orientation. Slowly. That would take practice. He formed his ‘boots’ again and tried walking. It was easier. He caught up to the others and tried to make the boots so thin they wouldn’t notice he was levitating instead of walking. So far as he could tell, it worked.

Something more than lack of connection with the ground vexed Stiles, like an itch between his shoulder blades. Walking felt wrong. Not walking. The direction. Entering town felt wrong, though a different wrong than turning away from Peter while tracking him had. This felt more like something pushing him to go away. No one else hesitated. To be fair, neither did Stiles. Still, he kept it to himself. The pack already knew the nemeton was damaged, acting as both beacon and deterrent. Stiles had never felt it himself, but he rarely left town.

He spared a moment to wonder how he recognized the nemeton, but Peter interrupted his thoughts before they got far.

“Your other packmate,” Peter said suddenly, “the one who eats electricity.”

“Josh,” Hayden said weakly as Corey asked, “What about him?”

“I think he’s dead.”

Corey froze.

“Dead?” Hayden asked, voice gaining strength with her emotion.

“I couldn’t tell who did it, but I heard his voice. The way he cried out… not many survive that kind of pain. You wouldn’t have without me to help you through it. Josh’s sounded worse.”

Lydia took Corey’s arm and tugged him along. “There’s nothing we can do right now. We have to get Hayden to safety.”

“Yeah, Hayden,” Corey agreed, though his breath ran ragged.

“Is she healing?” Stiles asked.

She had regained consciousness. Maybe she had regained more.

“Slowly,” Peter answered.

“I can stand,” Hayden said.

“You can’t walk.” Peter sneered.

“I don’t want you to carry me.”

“And I don’t want to carry you, but we can’t afford to let you slow us down.”

Hayden grunted and coughed. Stiles thought she had meant to growl.

Lydia answered her phone. Unless banshees could predict ringtones now, it must have been on silent.

“Ride’s close,” Lydia said, leading the group back to the street.

Stiles heard the siren before he saw the sheriff’s lights. His father’s patrol car, followed by a dark sedan drove past them just far enough to turn around and pull up alongside the group.

“Raf, take the wheel,” Melissa McCall ordered as she hurried out of her car to Hayden’s side.

Stiles climbed into the passenger seat of his father’s car as Peter helped lay Hayden across Melissa’s back seat with her head on Melissa’s lap. Corey took the front passenger seat, which left Peter and Lydia in the back of the police car.

“You look like hell,” Noah said as he reached one hand over to grip Stiles’ shoulder. “Never make me let you be locked up again.”

Noah took his hand from Stiles’ shoulder to shift the car back into gear and drive home.

**.x.**

No one saw what happened to Josh. Hayden saw the berserkers swarm him and Theo before she ran after Cole. Malia said she and Tracy had fought them back enough for the two of them to pull out. Scott and Isaac had focused on Kate herself. Ethan had hunted for Dorian but claimed he never found her. The next time any of them saw Josh, he had been slashed and shredded far beyond any hope for survival. He had died with his fangs out. Stiles left it to kinder people than he to debate how to return the body to the Diaz family.

Eventually, Theo collected Hayden and Corey. Scott nearly started a fight over what had happened. Theo scoffed and walked away with his battered chimeras in tow. Stiles kept his distance. Theo made his skin crawl, but the chimeras had been the ones to lose someone, not the McCall pack.

Rafael pulled Stiles aside. Not subtly enough to stop Noah and Peter from following, which drew Scott and Lydia’s notice in turn.

Rafael studied his audience with a grimace and then a sigh. He stood with Stiles by the kitchen counter, where Scott and Noah joined them. Lydia leaned against the table with one hand resting on its surface and the other tapping against her leg. Peter stopped just inside the kitchen and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.

“You know more than you’ve told me,” Rafael said to Stiles.

“I already told you that we sent the initial tip.”

“With portions removed, for our safety and yours. We know about the supernatural now, and about at least some of Watchtower’s experiments. It’s too dangerous for us to keep flying blind.”

“We sent hunters to handle the monsters because the FBI isn’t equipped or trained to fight them.”

“So equip us. Teach us what you know. Put us in contact with the hunters. We can’t go on as we have.”

Stiles bit his lower lip. “We can give you the missing files, but I don’t see how they’d be more useful than interrogating the prisoners you already have.”

Stiles knew the FBI had Nike, werewolf partner to the former Watchtower president, and Delilah Keynes, a senior member of the board itself. He suspected they had another board member, Cormac Flynn, as well, but Rafael had never confirmed that to him.

Rafael clenched his jaw. His eyes grew hard. “They’re dead. Along with several good agents and every informant we had, except you because I never logged you as related to Watchtower.”

Stiles’ mouth went dry. Watchtower was supposed to be broken, weak, on the run, not capable of finding and assassinating multiple FBI prisoners and informants. Was this the price for the year he took to heal?

“Holy hell,” Noah muttered. He stepped back to put his weight on the counter, leaning down to stare at the pseudo-granite patterning.

Rafael put a hand on Stiles’ shoulder only for as long as it took Stiles to shrug it off. Still, Rafael said, “You’re all I’ve got left right now, Stiles, so please, give me something.”

“This is why you came back to town.”

“I didn’t see any other choice.”

“It was someone with access to your files.”

Rafael nodded. “We couldn’t find any trace of a hack, and no agents are unaccounted for. We’re assuming it’s someone who still has access to those files.”

“They’ll know you came here.”

“I’m on ‘forced leave,’ even turned in my badge and gun and had to replace my sidearm through a civilian seller.” His expression darkened. “My partner was one of those killed. We edited my record to show I came into work drunk afterward and was immediately sent away.” Compared to the pain in his voice when he spoke of his partner, Rafael sounded almost blasé about faking a fall from sobriety.

Noah asked, “What’s to keep your mole from learning whatever Stiles tells you now?”

“We’re smoking whoever it is out as we speak.”

“You sound confident,” Noah observed.

“I am. We’ll get them, and when we do, they’ll wish they could trade places with the agents they killed.”

“How long will that take?” Scott asked, though his voice was softer than usual. “What if they learn more about Stiles?”

“If they’re with Watchtower, they already know about me,” Stiles said. “All they wouldn’t know is that I have anything to do with the FBI.”

Rafael told Scott, “We expect the operation to be complete before the night is done. I have no reason right now to think it won’t succeed, but I can’t say more. Telling you all this much is a risk.”

Scott looked unsure but nodded.

Stiles sighed. “Fine. Lydia, will you get the files? Please?”

She raised an eyebrow at him but headed upstairs to Stiles' room. Stiles would have to tell her later that he never got around to showing the others where he’d hidden them. Derek knew, but Derek was far away now. Maybe Scott and Noah should have known, but Stiles didn’t like letting either of them near his own files. They both expected so much better of him than what Watchtower drew out.

To Rafael, Stiles said, “I still don’t know what you expect me to tell you.”

“Anything you can. I know you tried to trace Dimitri Sorokin’s phone. If you hid knowing his personal phone number, I can’t imagine what else you haven’t told me.”

“Well, I don’t trust you.” Stiles crossed his arms.

“I don’t have time for this, Stiles. People are dead!”

“Wow, I didn’t know anyone ever died of Watchtower before!”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Noah reached past Stiles’ shoulder to stop Rafael advancing. “Cool it, McCall.” He glanced back at Stiles. “You too.”

Rafael took a breath and tried again, “It’s too late now to take it back or lock us out. It’s too late to keep hiding your own involvement.”

“We’re giving you the rest of the files, aren’t we?”

“I think it’ll take more than a few missing words to beat this.”

Scott said, “He’s right,” and his voice had grown strong once more. “We know we can’t do it alone, but neither can they.”

_Tell him,_ Derek said. _When we find Sorokin, the FBI can take him in._

_They’re compromised. Besides, if Haha, No’s in custody, we can’t take him out. If he lives, he’s a threat._

_Saving Sara is more important._

_Fine._ Stiles grunted. “One of… one of my friends was kidnapped by Haha, No’s minions. We’re tracking her back to him. That’s why Derek, Allison, and Cat aren’t here now.”

Lydia returned in time to hear this and paused in surprise before shoving a red flash drive into Rafael’s hand. She returned to the table and pulled out a chair. Before sitting, she paused to look at her phone.

“Stiles…” Peter didn’t say more, but his voice was wary.

“I think I need to tell him,” Stiles said. “Scott’s right. None of us have managed this alone. Maybe it’s time we tried to work together.”

Lydia typed something on her phone as she walked out of the kitchen. As she passed through the doorway, she tapped Peter on the arm and motioned for him to follow.

Stiles outlined the plan and how it had progressed so far, with emphasis on the moment Rafael shot one of only two and a half chimeras Stiles thought he could count on not to be evil.

After Stiles finished speaking, Rafael whispered, “What the hell?” Louder, he asked Noah, “You agreed to this?”

“Not a lot I can do to stop them.” Noah half-shrugged with one shoulder. “Most of them have superpowers.”

Rafael groaned. He ran a hand over his eyes and held it there, eyes closed, for a long moment.

“Stiles,” he said at last, “I had assumed you bluffed and manipulated your way past criminals and monsters, somehow. I was wrong, wasn’t I? They’re genuinely terrified of you, _rightly_ terrified, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“They waited until you, specifically, were out of play before moving in Beacon Hills.”

“Haha, No did. Kate and Dorian were too desperate to wait any longer. Hunters hounded one and Jesters the other. Oh, that’s my faction; we’ve got undercover agents instead of a standing army.”

“Jesters.”

“They named themselves after Joker.”

“How do you communicate with them?”

“I don’t know. Gregson handles that.”

Rafael shook his head, muttering to himself. “My son’s dumbass best friend is an evil overlord with a lieutenant to do his bidding.”

Noah stepped forward, no doubt to defend his son, but Stiles waved him back.

“You said that out loud,” Stiles told Rafael.

“Hm.”

“No apology?”

“Why haven’t you gathered them as a faction or attempted an assault on any of the others? Were you waiting to complete your physical therapy?”

“Wow.”

“It’s been a year, Stiles. It may be time to accept that you’ll continue needing that cane.”

“Dude. You know _I_ have enough self control to only call you a dumbass on purpose.”

“You can order the Jesters to cooperate with the bureau and find a way to denote Jester membership so our people don’t fight each other, if you can find a way to contact them without your lieutenant. Make them dress like clowns or something; I don’t know.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“What now?”

“I’m not a fucking clown.” Stiles stunned Rafael and reached over casually to take his sidearm, eject the magazine, and clear the chamber. “And I don’t need my knee healed to fucking destroy you or anyone else.”

Scott set his hand on Stiles’ shoulder. His voice was soft when he said, “Please stop.”

Stiles slowed his breathing and turned away from Rafael to take the seat Lydia had left pulled out.

Rafael gasped as he regained control of his body.

Scott nodded his thanks and turned to his father. “Maybe don’t taunt the evil overlord who most of Watchtower is rightfully terrified of.”

“When you put it that way…” Rafael muttered, still loud enough for Stiles to hear. He pointed cautiously to his gun. “Can I have that back?”

Stiles sent it toward him with a wave of his hand even though he didn’t need to move his body to activate his club talisman.

Rafael took his time reloading and stowing his sidearm, not looking at Stiles as he did so. When he finally spoke, he still didn’t sound mollified. “If your Jesters have been operating within the other Watchtower factions, then you must have more intel on them all, right?”

“Some. I haven’t been updated in a little while. So far as I know, Yukio’s doing too well for himself. Mortimer is sidelined and not improving his status. And we’ll find Haha, No soon.”

“What about the last board member? Felix Lorrain.”

“Oh, that’s Dumbo. He won’t admit it both because it’s dangerous and he’s a compulsive liar.”

“What the _fuck?”_ Rafael said it softly but with feeling.

“He prefers to be called Dumbo anyway.”

“That’s not…” Rafael winced and started over. “So you need to contact your Jesters for updated information?”

“I would normally do that by telling Gregson to make it so, but she’s a little kidnapped at the moment.” Stiles frowned as he realized a workaround. “Dumbo probably knows how to do Gregson’s job. He’s just an ass.”

“Your secret board member who goes by the name of a cartoon elephant.”

“Because I told him to,” Stiles confirmed.

“Of course.” Rafael sighed and crossed the kitchen to stand near the table, though he did not take a seat. He turned and walked back, pacing across the kitchen as he spoke. “If he can find a way to receive reports and issue orders, how do you feel about fighting on the front lines?”

“I don’t run real good. How about the middle lines?”

Rafael groaned. “So long as you’re close enough to use your magic powers to intimidate the enemy.”

Noah interrupted them to say, “Stiles, you don’t have to fight. Just because he asked doesn’t mean you have to agree.”

Peter returned and leaned against the wall.

“I always planned to fight, Dad. I just thought I could buy enough time to finish healing first.” Stiles rubbed at his bad knee. “He’s right though. _If_ it heals, it won’t be for years yet. The time to fight is now.”

Noah nodded slowly, though the open sorrow in his eyes made it plain he’d rather not.

Stiles asked Rafael, “Do you have an actual plan?”

“Not yet, not fully.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that’s how Haha, No ran things half the time. Don’t worry, I’ll figure it out.” After a pause, he added, “If it goes how most of my work does, it’ll be worse than you’re imagining.”

Rafael looked suitably concerned.

Behind him, against the wall, Peter didn’t. His eyes glowed over too eager a grin. He looked every inch a monster thrilled for a chance to kill despite still wearing his human face.

_That must be what I look like to the others,_ Stiles realized.

_No,_ Derek thought, his presence so soft Stiles hadn’t realized he was paying attention. _You’re worse._

_Ow._

_Also cuter._

_Too late to make it better._

_Ask the others if you think I’m wrong._

_No, I believe you, and you’d get too jealous over everyone telling me how cute I am._

“Is he okay?” Rafael whispered.

“He’s probably talking to Derek,” Scott answered just as quietly.

_Very annoying how they can always tell,_ Stiles complained.

_Well, you_ do _make a face like a zombie when you space out._

_You’re no better!_

The others began dispersing. It was late; they could draw up battle plans tomorrow.

_Derek?_ Stiles asked when Derek didn’t tease him again.

Silence.

Stiles lurched to his feet.

_Derek!_

_We found it._

“Stop!” Stiles shouted before the others could all leave. “They found Haha, No!”

“Where?”

Stiles didn’t know who asked. Maybe he had done it himself. He was already gone, almost fully with Derek who constricted under the sudden weight of him.

It was a cave, but not quite. A tunnel under a mountain leading to what looked like a decommissioned military base. There should be records of that.

Derek crouched behind a supply crate. It smelled like potatoes. Allison and Cat were at the other side of the tunnel, hidden even from Derek. He would have noticed if they were found—they would have fought—so he knew they must still be there.

Cautiously, Derek peered out from behind the crate. He felt to his core that he couldn’t take even one step farther. He had felt the same since the tunnel’s entrance. A psychic deterrent. He and Cat had experience with Watchtower’s psychic tech. They could fight it.

When they asked Allison about it, she admitted to feeling it but said, “It’s not worse than the nogitsune.” Then she stepped forward more easily than either wolf.

Those who took Sara stood before a gate, waiting for it to open, though it moved slowly. The shifter held Sara in chains with a dark, cloth sack over her head. Derek gritted his teeth and suppressed a growl.

The kidnappers saluted once the gate had opened. Someone important was there.

Their best chance to get in might be to rush the gate now. Derek still saw no sign of Cat or Allison.

The kidnappers might have saluted the head of their new guard or Sorokin himself. Derek couldn’t tell from here, but he’d run out of cover to hide him as he moved forward.

He could run for it.

That was a terrible idea. He should follow Allison’s lead. They agreed on that ahead of time. Derek and Cat might not think clearly in Sorokin’s presence.

They could lose Gregson if they didn’t move.

There might be a less secure entrance. Charging in the front gate would only get them killed.

If they lost Gregson and missed their only chance to take out Haha, No, Stiles would never forgive them.

Better unforgiven than dead.

A man stepped forward to inspect Gregson. He wore a lab coat because it was important to him to look like a scientist even so far from the lab and a cruel smirk because his heart was formed more of evil than tissue. It was him. Sorokin. Haha, No.

Allison hadn’t moved. Derek needed to stick to the plan.

He reached forward.

_HOW DARE YOU!_

Derek’s scream crashed through Stiles’ mind and rammed him back into his own body.

Stiles stumbled back and tripped on the chair behind him.

“Oh my god,” Stiles gasped. _I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t—_

Derek activated Wight’s blocker, now strapped to his wrist instead of hers and tuned to a lower setting so it affected only Derek.

Noah was at Stiles’ side, pulling him up. “What happened?”

“I fucked up.” Stiles trembled. “I fucked up.” His head spun as he looked around the room. Rafael and Peter were gone. “Did I say where?”

“You did. We’ll get him, and we’ll get Sara back,” Noah promised.

Scott asked, “What did you do?”

Stiles flinched. “I moved Derek.”

They were quiet until Scott asked, “Against his will?”

Stiles nodded.

“Why?”

“They _found_ him!”

“You don’t trust Derek to handle it?”

“Of course I do! I didn’t mean to do it.”

“You can steal control of someone else’s body by accident?”

Stiles stared at his feet.

He needed to see, but when he reached out, Derek wasn’t there. Derek had used the blocker to knock him fully out, but then he’d kept it up.

_He’s not going to forgive me again. I don’t deserve for him to forgive me again._

Irritation.

Irritation?

Peter leaned into the room, holding his cell phone to one ear. “Think more quietly,” he ordered before stepping out again.

“Sorry!”

Noah looked from the doorway to Stiles and raised his eyebrows, but it was Scott who asked, “What’s… uh, up with Peter?”

Stiles fidgetted and set his chair upright so he could sit again, which wasn’t better, so he scratched at the table. “Derek took a psychic blocker from Wight and turned it on just now when I definitely violated him. I guess I was still broadcasting my thoughts because Peter picked it up instead. I’m not sure if he could catch the words or was just distracted.”

“Are you and Derek going to be—”

He cut Scott off. “I don’t know.”

Rafael returned, tucking his phone back into his pocket. He said, “You won’t have to fight after all. None of those being deployed to take Sorokin’s base are near enough to make picking you and me up worth it.”

Stiles shoved back to his feet. “I have to be there!”

“No,” Noah said gently, “you don’t.”

“The plan was never for you to be there,” Scott added.

“Yes, it was,” Stiles insisted. “I was supposed to be there through Derek.”

“Don’t be such a piece of shit next time,” Peter said, returning to the room fully.

He tugged Dumbo in behind him.

“No fair,” Dumbo whined. “I was being sneaky.”

“Not very sneaky,” Scott said.

“I got your newer, shittier lieutenant,” Peter said. “Give some orders.”

“I would resent that if Sara weren’t the standard,” Dumbo grumbled.

“We didn’t make a plan yet,” Stiles said.

“Do you really think Scott’s asshole father is going to make everything work out better than you can?” Peter asked.

Rafael opened his mouth and stepped forward to defend himself, but Scott tugged him back and out of the kitchen.

Stiles felt like the last person who should handle anything. He'd just damaged his relationship with Derek. Again. Because he was such a piece of shit he made a habit of it. 

He still needed to fight.

“There aren’t enough of us to take them head-on, right?” Stiles asked.

Dumbo shrugged. “Depends on who we target and whether you plan on being either alive or victorious at the end.”

“Let’s plan on both.”

“Wow, you’re optimistic.”

“Order anyone near enough to reach Haha, No in the next day or so to go, immediately, and fuck him up.” Those weren’t tactical orders and would get people killed. “Order them specifically to report to Allison, if they can find her.”

“Okay. I have no idea who to give those orders to.”

“Gregson should have records somewhere.”

“So, I’m gathering that Sara handles one hundred percent of your logistics.”

“She handles fucking everything. Assign yourself an assistant if you need help.”

Dumbo pointed to Peter. “Can it be him?”

“No!” Peter and Stiles said together.

“Fine, I’ll get someone boring.” He sighed. “Also, I’m giving these orders as Sara. It’s what she would want.”

“It’s not.” Stiles sighed. “But do it.”

None of this got Stiles any closer to Derek or Haha, No. Stiles stalked from the kitchen to find where Scott had dragged Rafael to speak in the office. They stood over Noah’s desk, arguing in whispers.

“Stiles trusts him,” Scott said right before Stiles reached the doorway, so, naturally, Stiles paused out of sight.

“Does Stiles even know what he did?”

“Stiles never said how much he knows about his past, but if Stiles trusts him, so do I.”

“It can’t be that simple, Scott.”

“Stiles,” Scott said, raising his voice to a regular conversational level. “You tell him.”

With a sigh, Stiles stepped around the corner. “Tell him what? I haven’t been there long enough to know who you’re talking about.”

“Felix Lorrain,” Rafael said.

“We don’t talk about his past, but I believe he’s loyal to Gregson and to me.”

“See,” Scott said.

“That’s enough for you?” Rafael asked.

Stiles shrugged. “In this case.” Getting answers out of Dumbo was the only thing worse than not getting answers out of him. “We’ve got more important things to worry about right now. You said no one your people sent will take us to Haha, No, but how long would it take to get there ourselves?”

Scott looked too disappointed at that.

Rafael shook his head. “Days. The direct route is through the woods, but the roads have to go around the mountains. If we could fly, it would take a matter of hours.”

Stiles groaned. “I assume you’d have said so by now if you had the power to call in a drone strike.”

“I cannot imagine a scenario in which I would have that authority, Stiles.”

“It was worth a shot.”

Rafael’s phone rang. His eyes widened when he saw the contact name, and he blurted, “I have to take this,” as he rushed from the room to answer.

Scott watched him go with concern plain in his big brown eyes, but he only walked to Stiles’ side and set a hand on his shoulder as he said, “You don’t need to be there. It might be better if you’re not.”

Stiles felt his shoulders fall as he gave up on watching Haha, No die.

“Fine,” he said. “Then we figure out where I _can_ help.”


	5. Don't Ask Me to Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please imagine Dumbo pronounces “gif” in whichever way most annoys you.

Stiles and Scott found Dumbo and Peter to run through what they knew about the broken Watchtower’s faction leaders.

Haha, No was irrelevant. They had to trust Derek, Allison, and Cat.

Kate Argent still had her berserkers and an alliance with Dorian, but the hunters hounding her had killed or driven away her Watchtower faction members. She had never been much entrenched in Watchtower to begin with. Regardless, Chris Argent, Jax, and the other hunters would handle her.

Brenna Dorian had left what remained of her weakening faction to fend off Yukio while she allied with Kate, hunting Derek and Stiles in Beacon Hills to stop the Jesters sabotaging her troops. The hunters would take her if she was with Kate, but the two had different primary targets which could lead them to split up, especially if Kate realized Derek was gone.

John Mortimer initially spent his time recruiting since none of the other factions saw him as a significant threat. The Jesters assigned to him kept driving Mortimer's recruits away by making his faction insufferable. His forces stagnated as he turned his attention toward finding ways to legally distance himself from Watchtower and the consequences of his membership.

Yukio Jackson’s faction remained the strongest. They had taken and held several Watchtower facilities while continually beating back Dorian’s troops. Their supply lines were strong enough that the Jesters’ efforts to sabotage them made only a small dent. Very likely, if Stiles or the FBI did not defeat Yukio, he would reestablish Watchtower having purged every political enemy he once faced within the organization.

Joker had Jesters positioned within the other factions as spies and saboteurs, but not in enough numbers to attack outright. Whichever target he chose, local Jesters should be able to get him access to the enemy facility to wreak what havoc he could. Not everyone who had once called themselves Jesters still responded after a year of relative inactivity, in part because Stiles, unlike other faction leaders, never forced anyone to follow him.

Stiles and the others had taken seats at the dining table to discuss their plans. Dumbo kept making charts and graphs and maps, and while a few were useful, most wound up spread randomly over the table. Stiles leaned back in his chair with a sigh.

If he couldn’t reach the one he wanted, Stiles needed to go after the one he least believed anyone else could take down.

“Yukio,” he said. “If I want to do the most good, that’s where I go.”

Peter sat across from Stiles and leaned forward to lock eyes with him. “It’s also where you’re in the most danger. Attacking Yukio means either an all-out attack or an infiltration, and your injury is a liability in both instances.”

Scott had taken the seat at Stiles’ right side and nodded that he agreed with Peter. “We should focus on the threats here in Beacon Hills first anyway.”

Dumbo sat at the other corner of the square the four of them formed, but he didn’t add anything. His pen scratched against yet another sheet of paper, which he held behind his arm at an angle to block it from Stiles’ view.

“I know Kate and Dorian are strong, but they’re also on the brink of losing anyway. Argent has other hunters with him and Jax.” Stiles didn’t know who they were, just that Argent had warned Scott to stay out of the others’ way.

“I wasn’t disagreeing,” Peter clarified. “I was making the argument for why I’m going with you.”

Dumbo did look up at that. “I thought you’d want to kill Kate.”

Peter tensed. “Did that once. Didn’t take, and ultimately made things worse.”

“I don’t think you’d turn her into a jaguar twice.” Dumbo switched from paper to his phone. He had done this several times without ever explaining what he was using the phone for.

“Argent wouldn’t work with Peter,” Scott said. His brows furrowed. “Peter alone is not enough to protect you. Yukio and his forces are both strong.”

“We’ll take Malia,” Peter said.

Stiles opened his mouth to argue but shut it again. Malia would make excellent backup.

Scott asked, “Will she want to go with you?”

Peter leaned back and spread his hands. “I don’t see why not.”

Scott made a face like Peter definitely should see exactly why not.

“Just text her,” Stiles said. “I don’t know if most Jesters would fight with us, but Setter and Spade are monitoring Yukio, and those two will. So we won’t be alone.”

Dumbo raised his phone into the air and shouted, “Ha!”

“Was there some competition we didn’t know about?” Stiles asked.

“No, silly. Tuanwend agreed to be my assistant. I didn’t even realize he and Rivera were still in town. For some reason, Trick thinks they aren’t involved in ‘all this Tower bullshit,’ but they should have thought of that before becoming friends with a card-themed evil overlord.”

“You asked Trick to be your assistant?”

“Hubris is my tragic flaw.” He frowned, looking at his phone again. “Your emissary knows I’m not Sara. Like I slipped on purpose with the others, so they’d know why I needed help, but he just knew. And he hates me.”

“Why are you texting Deaton?”

“For pics of dogs. He is a veterinarian.”

“Are you kidding me?”

Dumbo looked at Stiles like he was an idiot, which, fair. “He basically called me a human wrecking ball, which is mean and derivative because that’s you, not me.”

“Not sure if that’s an insult or compliment since I am supposed to wreck the bad guys.”

“Porque no los dos dot gif.”

Stiles did not punch him. Not even a little.

Peter said, “Malia says she’ll go.”

Scott had been staring at the table with his brows furrowed since Dumbo diverted Stiles’ attention. Now he lifted his head to face Stiles. “Me too.”

“We’ll be gone for days,” Stiles said. “You need to get back to class. And they’ll need your help here if Dorian and Kate split up, especially if you want to stop Ethan from killing Dorian.”

Scott’s frown deepened with each point, but he shook his head. “Peter’s right about your leg. You’re going to need more than just the two of them. I’m going.” His voice grew more sure with each word.

Stiles resisted arguing further, and said to Dumbo, “We need four plane tickets. It’ll take way too long to reach Yukio by car.”

“Ugh. Where even is the nearest airport? Don’t answer that; I’m looking it up. Sara’s job is the worst.”

“Is the secret that he says what he’s thinking only to complain?” Scott whispered.

Stiles laughed while Dumbo scowled.

“Is this the mortifying ordeal of being known?” Dumbo pretended to gag.

Stiles reached over the table to take Dumbo’s pen while asking, “I know we’re short on Jesters in Haha, No’s faction, but is there anyone at all who can contact Derek and tell him to turn the blocker off?”

Derek was wearing long sleeves, so he would likely miss the message Stiles was rolling up his own sleeve to write in the heart tattooed on his forearm just above the last rose of his pain talisman.

Dumbo answered, “Probably not, but I’ll try.”

That would have to be enough.

In the heart, Stiles wrote, **I’m so sorry. I’m going after Yukio.**

Interesting choice.

Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

“Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.”

Peter surged to his feet so fast his chair clattered to the floor behind him.

 _What the hell are you—_ Derek cut off as soon as he registered Stiles’ panic. _Oh. Fuck._

That hadn’t been Gregson’s thought any more than it had been Stiles’. Until he felt it, Stiles wouldn’t have thought he’d recognize the owner, especially given how long it took to recognize Gregson. But he did. He always would.

Haha, No.

Dimitri Sorokin. The man who beat cracks into Stiles until he became Joker to keep from shattering.

Scott shook Stiles by his shoulders. “What’s wrong? Stiles! What happened?”

“Haha, No used the eye.”

Scott froze as though Stiles had used his spade talisman. Peter hadn’t moved once he stood except to bare his fangs.

Dumbo muttered, “Well, that sucks.”

Peter gritted his teeth, forced them slowly back to their dull, human form. His eyes burned red as he struggled to blink them back to blue.

“He saw what you wrote?” Peter asked.

“Yes.”

“We’ll make a new plan,” Scott assured them all. “An even better plan.”

 _We knew this would happen. I thought I’d be ready._ Stiles squeezed his eyes shut.

_Did you? After what you did at the sight of him, did you really think you’d be ready for him to use the eye on you?_

No. Stiles just hadn’t wanted to think about it.

 _I knew you would freak out,_ Derek continued, _but I thought you’d hold it back until we had him._

_I’m sorry. I didn’t even know I could do that. I just wanted so badly—_

_I know._

_I’m sorry._

_You don’t have to keep saying it. I know you’re sorry. I can read your fucking mind, Stiles._

Just like Stiles could read Derek’s mind, so he knew Derek was furious.

_Whatever you need, Derek, I—_

_I don’t need anything._

Allison pulled Derek’s attention away, so Derek pushed Stiles back into his own mind.

Scott and Peter hissed at each other in a whispered argument that Stiles couldn’t quite make out. Dumbo hadn’t moved and waved when he saw Stiles looking at him.

Derek returned. _Allison was scouting a possible path in, and she thinks it’ll work, but not for me. My shoulders won’t fit. Allison is deciding if she can leave her bow behind._

_Can you shift?_

Derek’s wolf form, while powerful, had narrower shoulders than his human form. _  
That’s what I asked too, but, no, there’s climbing._

So Derek might not get into the base at all.

_They’re going to continue scouting from the inside. They might find another way. Allison told me to hide in the meantime._

Stiles repeated Derek’s news aloud for the others.

 _Is there anything you need from me, or one of the others?_ Stiles asked.

_I can tell, even when you use different words, when you’re apologizing again._

_I…_ Stiles didn’t have much beyond apologies to offer.

 _You keep saying it because I didn’t say I forgive you. Because I’m mad, Stiles. We both know that I do forgive you, but it tastes bitter to say it while I’m still angry._ Derek picked up on Stiles’ immediate thoughts even though he had decided it was an inappropriate time to share them. _And I know I didn’t say that with my tongue and that words have no taste; it’s a metaphor._

_It’s a very nice metaphor._

_Don’t patronize me while I’m being angry._

_Your delivery there left something to be desired._

_Can you not turn off the quipping part of your brain at all?_ Derek shook his head, already diverted from his anger. _I used to be so good at staying angry._

_Is that a skill you want?_

_No._

_I mean, if it’s bothering you, I can just keep thinking dumb things to make you mad repeatedly._

_I’ll turn the fucking blocker back on._

_Good point. I think you managed to stay angry until you turned it off._

_I_ am _still angry._ Derek sighed. _But I wouldn’t want you to deal with Sorokin’s thoughts alone._

Stiles winced. He’d almost distracted himself from that. _Thank you, Derek, for staying with me._

Derek sent certainty he couldn’t possibly feel. _We’ll get him. It won’t matter what plans he saw._

Stiles clenched his hands into fists in his lap. _It matters that he saw_ me.

**.x.**

Rafael and Noah found the four of them still at the table, still debating what to do now that Haha, No knew their target, still unsure whether it mattered that he knew. Derek had asked Stiles for some time, so even though Derek had nothing else to do and left the blocker turned off, Stiles made do without his input.

Rafael stood by the table and cleared his throat. Stiles rolled his eyes because he could have just spoken to them like a normal person.

“I have news,” Rafael said once all eyes were on him. “John Mortimer is in custody.”

“Oh, shit, really?” Stiles asked, more because his mouth had run away with him than because he doubted it. “How?” That one was more important.

“I told you we had an operation to uncover the mole in the bureau. What I couldn’t tell you was that the bait for the mole was an op against Mortimer. It was successful on both fronts.”

“That’s amazing!” Scott said.

“Too convenient,” Dumbo decided.

Rafael shook his head. “It comes with bad news too.”

Stiles waited several seconds before asking, “Are you really gonna keep us waiting?”

“I’m trying to sort which parts I can tell you before I say something I shouldn’t.”

“We told you _our_ secrets,” Stiles grumbled.

Rafael looked unconvinced. “Cormac Flynn is probably alive. The mole was the one responsible for reporting his death, and we haven’t been able to confirm Flynn’s death with anyone else. If there was a body, it’s gone now.”

Dumbo immediately began texting again as he whispered, “Aw, hell.”

Stiles had believed they’d cut down on the number of board members running around. He literally couldn’t remember the last time anyone had recent news of Cormac Flynn.

“Is Lydia still here?” Stiles asked. “She’s good about dead people.”

“Does she seem the type to sit around waiting on your beck and call?” Peter asked.

Stiles glared at him, which Peter found amusing. Because _that_ was so useful to know. _Thanks, broken bond._

“She left,” Scott said. “She was on the phone with someone, but I was too far away to hear who without being really rude about it.”

Dumbo began laughing.

“That isn’t funny?” Scott seemed unsure what was going on.

“Oh, no, I’m laughing at a gif of a puppet surrounded by flames.” Dumbo leaned over the table to focus on Stiles. “What is it we’ve been missing about Dorian?”

“...Her location?”

Dumbo raised an eyebrow.

Stiles mentally reviewed everything he did know about Dorian, looking for holes. “Why didn’t she retreat instead of abandoning her troops?”

“Yukio would crush them if they showed him their backs.”

Stiles bit his thumbnail.

“That’s a terrible habit.”

“Dumbo, shut up or tell me the answer.”

Dumbo shut up.

“How is she commanding her troops long distance?”

Peter had stolen her phone, so they knew she never did so that way, unless she had more than one phone.

“Yes. How?”

Stiles gasped. “She bonded a human.”

“What human did we just discover is alive and free?”

“She bonded _Flynn?”_

“Aw, don’t say it like it’s that hard to believe. They worked well together, sort of like work friends, but villainous.” Dumbo paused. “Are there corporate boards that aren’t evil? Like ours was explicitly a cult, but there are different kinds of evil.”

Rafael cut in, “Speaking of the board, what was y—”

“I was in charge of ethics in games journalism.”

Rafael cut off with something between a whine and a growl.

“We can use Flynn against Dorian,” Stiles said. “She’s strong, but if we take him out…”

“No.” Scott grabbed Stiles’ arm. “Please don’t kill anyone.”

“But if we’re targeting him anyway, we can use Dorian’s soldiers to distract Yukio, giving us an opening to sneak in.”

“We never even decided if we were still going after him,” Scott argued.

“We’re deciding now.”

“How do you get Dorian’s soldiers to do what you want?” Rafael asked.

Stiles smirked. That one was easy. “I tell them to do it. Then they either do because they’re scared of me, or they run because they’re scared of me and Yukio. Then Yukio either deflects their attack or chases them down.”

“What if Dorian’s forces attack you?” Rafael countered.

Stiles thought that unlikely and tried to say so with his face. “I’ll kill enough of them that they start running away instead.”

Scott made a strangled sound.

“We can probably make it work without killing,” Stiles conceded. “But we also may not.”

“We should try,” Scott said.

“Pitting two factions against each other is still killing people, just indirectly,” Dumbo pointed out.

Peter kicked Dumbo under the table with no attempt to hide it whatsoever.

Scott didn’t look surprised so much as uneasy. It must have already occurred to him. Did he pass the blame onto the hand committing the murder, or had he already give it up as a lost cause to focus on smaller arguments he might still win?

Stiles said, “We’ll try to capture Flynn, maybe use him as a hostage to command Dorian’s forces. Then we infiltrate to capture Yukio while he’s distracted.”

“What do we do with Flynn?” Peter asked.

Stiles winced. He’d sort of hoped they wouldn’t ask because his main idea was to kill him anyway. He was absolutely not about to say that in front of Scott. “One of us will have to stay behind with him. We can’t bring him in with us.”

Scott nodded. “I’ll do it. Just promise you’ll try to take Yukio alive too.”

“We will.” Stiles didn’t promise how hard they would try.

**.x.**

Stiles fidgeted with his phone, though he wasn’t really looking at it.

 _I don’t plan on blocking you again,_ Derek tried to reassure him. _I know what you did was more panic reflex than thought._

_Haha, No could block me for you._

Derek chuckled bitterly at that. He sat in the branches of a large tree with his back against the trunk.

 _He’ll probably die without me seeing him,_ Derek thought, though it didn’t help.

_Curse your broad, sexy shoulders._

Derek allowed himself another low chuckle at that, but Stiles limited himself to a smirk. People were already eying him. Probably because he was weird and fidgety. They’d had to drive to a larger city because Beacon Hills never got its own airport, so Stiles’ tattoos stood out a lot less than they did back home. The others—Peter, Scott, and Malia—were with him, but they didn’t really help. Malia kept baring her teeth at people in a way clearly more of a threat than a greeting.

 _Are you sure?_ Stiles asked. _You’re okay with me in your head after… what I did._

_Unlike you, I’ve been sitting alone in a tree for a good while, so I’ve had time to think about it._

Stiles had been afraid to think about it.

 _We’ll be okay,_ Derek assured him.

_I’m just so fucking sorry, Derek._

_I know, and I forgive you._

_I don’t think I deserve you._

_Good thing I get to decide that._

“Isaac is having trouble with Ethan,” Scott said, staring at his phone. He sounded lost.

Derek mentally pulled back, encouraging Stiles to pay attention to his own surroundings.

“They do hate each other,” Stiles reminded Scott.

“I thought Lydia would kind of handle them both,” Scott admitted.

Stiles almost asked why she hadn’t but realized what it must be. “She wanted to talk to Argent without them?”

“Can you blame her?”

“They’ll have to work together eventually.”

“You’re the ones who sent every alpha out of town,” Malia said. “Two alphas are _here.”_

Scott shook his head.

 _He needs to choose a second,_ Derek thought. _Peter and I may be alphas in strength and name, but we’re not leaders._

 _Allison and Lydia are both leaders,_ Stiles pointed out. _It’s the number of fronts that’s the problem._

_Scott’s problem is that he doesn’t have anyone else he feels safe leaving you with._

_He does, just it’s you and Allison._ Scott was texting furiously, and Stiles studied him for a moment before adding, _That’s why he’s here instead of with the people who really need his help, isn’t it?_

_He worries about you._

Stiles got a text from Gregson’s number, but he knew Dumbo had sent it. **They’re not together. We have to split up.**

 **That’s a terrible idea,** Stiles replied.

**Allison’s dad and the vengeance twin already ran off in opposite directions. I thought you said Argent was smart.**

He was, but he’d been hunting his sister for too long, just missing her at every turn. Maybe he’d grown desperate.

“Oh, no,” Scott groaned. “Ethan ran off after Dorian.”

Stiles could probably also have said that, he realized.

“Can he beat her?” Malia asked.

“No,” Peter answered.

“Isaac is with him,” Scott said.

“She fought two alphas and escaped,” Peter reminded Scott. “Theo and I got in each other's way, but that shouldn’t have been enough to save her.”

“We were sort of relying on the hunters’ help there,” Stiles grumbled.

 **Do we have anyone who can go after Dorian?** Stiles asked Dumbo.

**If I wish really hard, maybe I can trap her in ash. I didn’t manage last time, but none of the other humans will do better.**

“Scott, do you have Theo’s number?” Stiles asked.

“Yeah, but—” He cut off as Stiles snatched his phone. “I need that.”

Stiles copied the number over and handed Scott’s phone back.

He texted Theo, **Hey, asshole, it’s Stiles. Text me now. You owe us.** After a few seconds, he added, **Hey.** He repeated, **Hey,** several more times before calling.

“Not fucking now, Stiles!” Theo hissed through the phone as soon as he answered.

“Go beat up Dorian. Now.”

“No.” Theo hung up.

Stiles called back.

“I don’t have time for you.”

“Me neither. Send your pack if you can’t go.”

“I can’t. Hayden’s fucking missing. Don’t call again.”

Stiles called again, but Theo sent him to voicemail. Stiles tried once more, but Theo had blocked his number.

“Hayden shouldn’t be moving faster than a walk right now,” Peter said. “She was healing too slowly to have recovered yet.”

Stiles scrunched up his nose at werewolf healing in general. She _should_ have recovered by now, but something had slowed her healing, which meant she probably hadn’t.

Scott’s eyes drifted to the gate as a line of people began shuffling out with their carry-ons in tow.

“Looks like it’s time to make up your mind,” Peter said.

“I can order Setter and Spade to move in,” Stiles offered. “They’re better spies than we are.”

“They’re not stronger,” Malia pointed out. “That’s why it’s the four of us, isn’t it? We’d be able to fight our way out.”

“So long as one of us has a free arm to carry Stiles while we run,” Peter said.

They hushed as a teenager squeezed past to buy a bag of chips from the vending machine.

“You think I’m a liability?” Stiles hissed when the area was theirs alone once more.

“Just the knee.” Peter pointed to Stiles’ cane. “Does that qualify as a carry-on?”

“It’s a fucking mobility aid, so it better.”

“You don’t know?”

“It is a stick. If they take my stick, I’ll get a new stick.” Stiles scowled at the cane. It was his own cane, left behind when Theo took him in. The Surgeon’s surprise collection of sword canes definitely did not qualify as carry ons. “Are you saying I should stay behind to help? Even if I speed home, the fight will be over before I get back.”

“That is not what I said.”

Malia leaned past Scott to say, “I thought we needed Stiles to make them fight for him after we beat their leader.”

Stiles' phone lit up again, this time with a text from Trick. **I’m in fucking hiding.** Then they added, **An evil werewolf knows I did magic for you, and now Eddie and his friends have me in some fucking bunker.**

 **I’m sorry.** Stiles didn’t know what else to say.

“They’re after Trick,” Stiles said. “Dumbo got them to safety, for now.”

Dumbo’s text came a moment later. **Dorian after Trick. Tuan, Riv, and I got them first.**

“There’s no one to guard them,” Scott said.

“Dumbo’s got two others from his old squad.”

 **You’re sorry?** Trick asked, immediately following with a second text. **You should be Here. Stop trying to get yourself killed.**

Stiles covered his eyes.

 _You can’t be everywhere,_ Derek reminded him.

_I know!_

_Do you?_

Stiles’ phone rang, but it wasn’t Theo coming to his senses or Trick trying to bring Stiles to his. It was Stiles’ father.

“Dad?”

“One of your friends is here, the girl Rafael shot—yes, Raf, we all know you thought she was the bad guy, but I’m on the phone now. She says she’s hiding from her pack.”

“Is she okay? Did she say what’s going on?”

“She’s still healing, and she says she needs to talk to your pack. No one’s here, Stiles.”

“Put a circle of ash around the house. There’s a baggie of mountain ash in the side table drawer we never use by the door.”

Noah rummaged loudly for a moment then said, “Stiles, this isn’t enough.”

“Yes, it is. Believe it, and it is.”

“That’s not…” he sighed. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

“You can. You have to.”

“Stay on the phone with me.”

“I will.”

Noah moved through the rooms of the lower floor, narrating for Stiles where he was and periodically telling himself there was plenty left.

“I’m back to the living room now. Almost done. Plenty of ash to finish, right?”

“Right. Easily. That bag should hold more than you need.”

“More than enough.” Noah gasped. “It worked. Oh, thank god.” He sounded more tired than excited.

“I knew you could do it!”

“Never make me do that again!”

“Sorry.” Stiles laughed. “You know you’re in the pack, right? A full member of a werewolf’s pack.”

“I don’t know what that means. I’m not a—she’s coming down. Should you be walking?”

Stiles couldn't make out Hayden’s response through the phone.

Noah sighed a long, annoyed, disappointed sigh. “You better tell him, then. I’m giving her the phone and getting myself a drink.” His voice began to fade as he said, “Fine, no drinks, but…”

There was a dull but soft thud, and Hayden said, “The ash won’t help. Chimeras are technically human; our powers are scientific, not supernatural. It can’t keep Theo out.”

“Is he after you?”

“Yes.”

Stiles gave her plenty of time to explain before asking, “...Why?”

“Do you remember when I said we were keeping the parts of something?”

“Yeah, you were vague about it.”

“They’re a chimera garuda’s talons that can be worn to drain power. Belasko, the garuda, was an earlier experiment, one of those who failed before you helped us fight the Doctors.”

“And what? Theo wants them back?”

“Theo killed Josh.”

She stopped speaking with a sharp intake of breath. Stiles didn’t push. It was most likely the first time she’d said it aloud.

Hayden took several slow breaths and continued, “Theo knows two ways to drain power. One is the talons. He can use them incrementally and leave the host alive while making himself stronger. We can regain our power with a day or so of healing as long as he doesn’t take too much. The talons could be used to drain power completely too, if he wanted. There'd be no coming back from that.”

“He’s using them on his own pack?”

She continued speaking over Stiles. “The other way uses his own claws. It starts like a wolf takes pain, but it takes their life instead, and with it their power. I’ve only seen him do it once, to an alpha the Doctors had in a tank. Theo used the alpha’s power to keep us alive and then killed him to become alpha himself.”

“Is that how he killed Josh?”

“He won’t admit it, but I saw him absorbing electricity like Josh could. And I found the talon Josh was keeping even though Theo said it was stolen during the fight…” She took several more shaky breaths. “I have mine and Josh’s now. Theo probably knows I took it.”

“Why did he let you all have them?”

“He used to keep them himself, but he said the risk of your enemies taking our strength was too great.” She paused. “He also said it was to build our trust, but I think it was the first thing.”

“Dorian scared him.”

“Yes.”

“Why did you let him drain you?”

“When I didn’t, he used the talons on my sister instead. Humans don’t have power, so they took her health.” Hayden’s breath hitched and she struggled audibly through the next sentence. “She was in the hospital, in a coma, for a week.”

Hayden’s sister worked at the station. Stiles remembered several months back when his father had been at work even longer hours than usual and said he was helping cover for one of his deputies. At the time, Stiles didn’t ask what had happened.

“Fuck. What about Corey and Tracy?”

“I haven’t spoken to Corey about Josh, or at all since we left your house. They were friends. Tracy doesn’t care if Theo kills the rest of us. I think she’d help him. Maybe she did.”

The first group to board the plane had already lined up as the last few stragglers before the crew departed from the plane. Stiles was running out of time to debate himself.

Stiles looked at the others in the airport. “I’m staying,” he said. “We can probably get the hunters to help with Dorian and have Dumbo keep Trick hidden until it’s done, but there’s no one left to help Hayden.” To Hayden he said, “I’m heading back to town. Will you be safe at my dad’s?”

“You’re out of town? Is Lydia with you? I tried to call her, but she didn’t answer. That’s why I came here.”

“I’m at the airport. Lydia is in town, but she’s with the hunters now. And not answering her phone. I think mine and Scott’s dads—”

“You mean the jerk who shot me.”

“—are the only ones available in town right now.”

“At least I came to the right place.” Her voice sounded farther away for a moment as she said, “Give me a minute.” To Stiles, she said, “These two can’t fight Theo. I’m putting them in danger if I wait here long enough for you to drive back.”

“We have some other friends holed up in a bunker right now. Do you think you can travel?”

“I got here, didn’t I?”

“One sec.” Stiles pulled the phone from his ear to text Dumbo and Trick about Hayden and ask if she could share their bunker.

Dumbo responded first with, **Doesn’t bringing a hunted chimera here put Trick (and me) in more danger?**

Trick’s text arrived only a moment later. **Should we pick her up?**

Stiles got directions from Dumbo to share with Hayden. “My dad can probably drive you.”

“He’s in danger as long as he’s with me. I can still walk, and I’ll be better hidden on my own.”

“Keep me updated as much as you can, please.”

“I will.”

Airport staff had finished cleaning out the plane cabin and were beginning to load the first boarding group. Stiles and the others all had tickets for the last group since they purchased theirs so late, but they still had only a short time left to talk.

Peter leaned forward. “I see you still eyeing the line even though you’re staying. You want the rest of us to go.”

“Setter and Spade can back you up. Peter, I don’t know exactly what your connections are, but I know you have them and that you frighten people. Can you make the plan to use Dorian’s troops work without me?”

“We’ll find a way, even if we have to drive them into a retreat ourselves.”

“What connections?” Malia asked.

“I stole Dimitri’s memories and put them to better use than he did.” Peter waved a hand dismissively.

“I’m staying too,” Scott said. “Ethan and Isaac still need help against Dorian, and I don’t know if the hunters will give them any.”

Stiles nodded. “We can split up after we get into town.”

Scott asked Malia, “You’re sure about going with just Peter? We can go after Yukio another day.”

Stiles doubted they would have another chance but kept it to himself.

Malia gave a single, determined nod. “Peter and I can transform, so we can sneak in if we need to. That wouldn’t have worked with you and Stiles.”

“Peter transforms into a beast, not a wolf.”

Malia gave Peter a sidelong look and her eyes began to light before she stifled it. “I think he can choose.”

Peter pretended to be offended.

Stiles said, “She’s right, isn’t she?”

Peter dropped the pretense with a shrug. “I don’t know how to choose, but I suspect I could.”

“Wow.” Stiles sighed. “Figure it out, I guess. It’ll have to be enough.”

The second group began to board the plane.

“We need to line up soon,” Peter said.

Stiles stood, and the others followed suit as he lifted his bag to his shoulder. He grabbed Peter for a hug. Even though he didn’t tell him to stay alive, he got the feeling Peter understood. Malia tugged Stiles into a hug when he had released her father.

She whispered in Stiles’ ear, “I’ll watch him.”

“Thank you.”

Malia hugged Scott too before going to line up with Peter.

“You sure about this?” Stiles asked Scott.

“Yeah. You?”

“Not really. Let’s go.”

Stiles wasn’t sure Peter and Malia could take on both Flynn and Yukio without Scott and Stiles to help. He wasn’t sure anyone would ever defeat Yukio if they didn’t manage it _now._ He wasn’t sure Scott and Stiles both needed to stay, though they’d both chosen a different fight to stay for. The only thing Stiles knew for sure was Hayden couldn’t fight Theo alone. So that’s what he chose. The only thing he knew.

Derek’s thoughts had seemed distant, but he slipped in now to tell Stiles, _You made the right choice._

_You’re only saying that because I made it for someone else._

Derek shrugged, but it was awkward. He had moved to a position with better cover.

 _Are you okay?_ Stiles asked.

_There’s fighting. I don’t know more than that._

Stiles wanted to help, but he couldn’t. He needed to focus on Hayden.

Scott and Stiles got a few looks as they left, but no one seemed suspicious.

Walking with a cane made texting a bit trickier, but Stiles still managed to tell Trick, **I’m on my way.**

Scott was texting too as they returned to the car. No one trusted the Jeep enough for this drive, so they’d taken Derek’s Camaro even though it left Scott and Malia painfully cramped in the back seat. No one dared deny Stiles front seat privileges when he rubbed obtrusively at his knee, and Peter had insisted on driving.

They could have taken Scott’s car, but the Camaro was faster. Peter had never intended to obey speed limits.

“Can you speed like he did?” Stiles asked Scott.

Scott hesitated.

“I can drive,” Stiles said. “I may not have superhuman reflexes, but I do have a serious disregard for the law. Also my dad makes me basically immune to traffic tickets.”

“I’ll drive fast. Just get in.” Scott shook his head as he took the driver’s seat.

**.x.**

On their way to the airport, Stiles had barely noticed the traffic, though he’d been vaguely aware of Peter speeding through it by the sound of angry drivers honking at him if nothing else. Now that he was watching the road, Stiles was glad he’d let Scott drive. Stiles could have handled it, but not easily, and he wouldn’t have been able to spare the mental effort to plan how to fight Theo.

Most of what he came up with was: telekinetic powers. He would need them to keep Tracy back. As much as Stiles wished they would split up to search for Hayden, he doubted Tracy would leave Theo alone. At the very least, he preferred to be pleasantly surprised by her absence than caught off guard when she attacked.

Theo himself had the strength of an alpha. Stiles could match that—sometimes. He could stun Theo, hurt him, and take his pain to make Stiles strong enough to fight him. Stiles flexed his fingers. Though the tattoo was on his wrist and forearm, not the hand itself, the talisman worked when he touched someone with his left hand.

Scott drove slower than Peter had, but faster that the signs said he should. They left the city quickly, and Scott accelerated once the roads were clearer.

As they sped down a dark, empty road, Scott admitted, “I thought Argent would handle it.”

“Me too. All that worry, and we never considered he might need help with Kate.”

“Oh, no, what if he _does?”_

“He doesn’t. Probably.”

“She has berserkers, and Lydia’s been hearing bears.”

Stiles winced.

“I shouldn’t have tried to leave,” Scott said. “To get Flynn or to go to college. Everything’s falling apart.”

“That’s my fault. Not yours. You should be able to go to school.”

“I’m probably getting kicked out of all of my classes. I should have been back yesterday.”

“One absence won’t ruin you.”

“Three might.”

“If you get behind, you can try again.”

“It’s not like high school, Stiles. I can’t afford to fall behind because it costs money to try again.”

Stiles frowned at his hands.

“It’s not your fault,” Scott said. “All this running around proves we could never take them on alone. There’s nothing more we could have done.”

“Scott, I’m more powerful than I know. We’ve seen glimpses of it. What if I could have done more?”

“I’ve seen a little of what you’re talking about,” Scott reminded him. “It’s like you’re something else. I don’t want you to become that. I don’t want you to try to. Power isn’t worth losing you.”

“What if that’s who I am too?”

“I know you’re supposed to be a ‘monster’ now, but so am I. Do you really find me monstrous?”

“No one does, dude. You’re like the Superman of werewolves. As in morally steadfast, not invincible. Do you think wolfsbane is a kryptonite?”

“It’s a weakness but not my only one… Hey! No! I was talking about how we’re more than what we’ve become.”

Stiles laughed.

“I can’t believe you distracted me.”

“It’s fine, dude. Your point is made.”

“Yeah, but I wanted you to be the one to say it. That way you would believe it.”

“That’s so sweet. I say things I don’t believe all the time.”

“Do you?”

Hayden sent her first update, though all it said was, **Still alive.**

Stiles sent a thumbs up.

For a while, neither of them spoke. Stiles pretended to be busy on his phone.

Eventually, Scott asked, “What are you going to do if Theo finds you?”

“Fight him.”

“He won’t be alone.”

“I can keep Tracy and her kanima venom away from me.”

“Can you do that while fighting Theo? If either of them gets close…”

“I can use pain as fuel, maybe even fight while paralyzed.”

“You might not heal this time.”

“This is what we’ve got, Scott. You can’t handle everything any more than I can.”

_Stiles._

Scott argued, “You shouldn’t have to handle anything! You’re still recovering.”

“I may be as recovered as I’m going to get.”

_Stiles!_

“Hold up, Scott. Derek needs me.”

Scott grunted.

_Derek._

_The fighting was us—you—Jesters._

_They got there that quickly?_

_We did have agents inside; they just couldn’t contact us. Sorokin monitors all communications, supernatural and mundane alike. Cat and Allison found the Jesters while inside. They've disrupted defenses enough for me to enter now._

_That’s great news._

Something going right for once.

 _Will you forgive me if I get Sara instead of Sorokin? I know you wanted to,_ he hesitated, _to watch him die._

_But you don’t._

_I do._

_But you don’t like that you do._

_Right._

_Get Gregson out of there._

_Thank you._

_You don’t need my permission._

_But this way, you aren’t allowed to be mad at me later that you missed it._

_You’ve outplayed me once again, good sir. Now save our friend._

Derek set off.

Stiles took a slow breath and let it out. He wouldn’t see Haha, No die. He couldn’t feel Derek’s claws through Haha, No’s throat or smell his blood as it spilled.

 _I saw him die once before,_ Stiles reminded himself. _It didn’t help. It wasn’t nice. I don’t need it. I thought I already accepted this._

Aloud, Stiles said, “They found Jesters to assist and are all three in the super secret evil base.”

“That’s good.”

“I shouldn’t be too distracted since I won’t get to watch Haha, No die.”

“You do know how messed up that sentence is, right?”

“Yeah.”

“What about how messed up it is to think that you personally need to take down Watchtower and every monster that comes through Beacon Hills?”

“I have let my friends handle so much of that!”

“We shouldn’t have to either. We’re supposed to worry about going to class and studying and how to get back home often enough to keep our parents happy. We couldn’t do it in high school, and now we still can’t because we keep taking on all of this.”

“Who else will? Who else can?”

“The hunters—”

“We called them. We called the FBI. Argent is in town right now, but Kate’s still free.”

“I know.” He shook his head. _“I know._ Maybe when Derek’s family was here, the adults would have handled it. Maybe someday, we’ll be able to make sure the younger pack members don’t have to carry so much.”

“Then what are you trying to say?”

“Nothing, Stiles. I’m venting. I’m scared, and I’m angry, and I don’t have anywhere to put that. I’m worried about you. You should be venting too.”

“I don’t need words when I know I can finally kick Theo’s ass tonight.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to kill him.”

“He doesn’t deserve better.”

“No one deserves to die, and even if they did, we don’t have the right to decide that.”

Trees surrounded the car now. The preserve all but circled Beacon Hills, broken only by the roads in and out of town. The woods were dark. Stiles saw a deer at the side of the road, but only in a flash as Scott sped past.

“Stiles,” Scott said, “it’s not just him. Killing hurts the killer.”

“I think it hurts the kill-ee a lot more.”

“You deserve better too.”

“Maybe I did once—”

“No. You _do._ Right now. I don’t care what you’ve done. I don’t care what you’re going to do. You deserve to live and to live well. You deserve to be happy and at peace, and you deserve never to have to hold a life in your hands again.”

“Thanks, Scott.”

Hayden texted again. No more interesting than last time, but at least she was alive.

Scott frowned. “You still don’t believe me.”

“I believe you mean it.”

“But you think I’m wrong. You think people can do enough to earn execution.”

“I don’t know what’s right, not really. I know people can do enough that I want them dead whether they’ve earned it or not.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you believe you deserve to hurt so much?”

Stiles clenched his fists in his lap. “If we tally me up, I’d like to think there’s more good than bad, but I don’t get the credit for that. It’s Derek, and my dad, my friends, _you.”_

“So you think you deserve pain but not death?”

Trees gave way to new construction. As the far side of town withered, this one grew. Stiles suspected the nemeton’s uneven signals were why the city built here instead of over the old sections of town. Eventually, they’d run out of new usable land. Wildlife restrictions prevented building in the preserve. Even the Hale’s old house had been demolished once it defaulted to the state, though originally the family’s property had been old enough that it was considered separate from the preserve proper.

“Stiles,” Scott urged.

Stiles glanced at Scott and found him resolved. His jaw clenched and unclenched, and his fingers strained not to dig into the steering wheel.

Stiles said, “The course of our lives isn’t based on what we deserve. Bad things happen to good people and all that. I don’t know a better way to stop the pain than to get rid of the ones causing it.”

“You killed Sorokin before. That didn’t stop it.”

Stiles clenched his hands into fists because he had nowhere better to send his agitation. “We killed Peter too, but he got better after he came back.”

“We were never really his targets. We were in the way. He’s still a killer, even if he’s willing to cooperate with you and Malia.”

“So he was either never that evil or still is now.”

“I thought for a while I might kill him,” Scott said, eyes firmly on the road though his voice grew unsteady. “I knew by the end I couldn’t even as I knew I couldn't help him. I still fought him and because we beat him, Derek was able to kill him.”

“That’s not on you.”

“I’m not responsible for Derek. I know. But do you realize how rarely I can save someone like Peter?”

“You saved Ethan and Aidan and Mason. Allison would have died to defeat the nogitsune if not for you.”

“I didn’t save Aidan for long.”

“You can’t save everyone all the time. A few minutes ago, you were ranting about how we shouldn’t have to.”

“I know, but if either of us could really just turn our backs, we would have by now.” Scott looked around.

They had made it into the town proper, if still not a portion of Beacon Hills Stiles frequented himself. It was barely twenty minutes from the bunker, if Stiles remembered correctly.

“Did Hayden say where she is?” Scott asked.

She would easily have beaten them to the bunker if she could run, but Hayden’s injury kept her at a walk. The need for stealth likely slowed her further, and may have altered her route as well.

Stiles said, “I’ll call her.”

Scott rolled down the window as Stiles dialed. Hayden’s phone rang too long. It went to voicemail.

“Scott, she didn’t answer.”

“It’s probably on silent to keep it from giving her away; even the vibrate would be loud to Theo. Maybe she didn’t notice.” He took a deep breath. “There. I smell her.”

“Anyone else?” Stiles meant Theo, mostly.

“I think she’s alone.” Scott took the next left.

“You think?”

“Dude, scent patterns in the wind are not the most precise way to map an area. I can find her general direction, at best.”

“Sorry. I’m on edge.”

“I’m worried too.”

Scott drove only a little while, periodically turning his head toward the open window to better catch her scent.

He pulled to a stop by an alley. “Roll down your window.”

Stiles did.

“It’s us!” Scott called, though too softly for a human to hear more than a few feet away.

Hayden stepped from the shadows with a hand squeezing her abdomen. Stiles scrambled to open the back door for her.

“It’s not much farther,” Scott said as Hayden lowered herself into the back seat, “but you don’t have to walk the rest.”

Hayden grunted. Maybe as a response, maybe because the car started moving again.

Stiles leaned over the center console to ask Hayden, “Any sign of Theo or the others?”

“Not recently.”

“Do you want to keep the talons or have one of us hold them?”

Hayden paused, mouth open. She blinked. “I’ll keep them. Thanks.”

“Do you have any idea why Theo would kill Josh instead of using the talons again?”

“Maybe he needs to be stronger to fight the Watchtower wolves.”

Stiles bit his lip.

“You don’t think that’s it?”

“Cole’s research should have what he needs to make himself stronger.”

Scott said, “Draining his pack would work though. That’s how the alpha pack did it.”

“But the alpha pack is gone. Theo would be alone if he killed his pack,” Stiles argued. “Oh.” He dropped against the backrest. “Unless he planned to use his new strength to take over another pack. He said once that he would have liked to have me in his pack. He might feel the same about some of the others.”

“He’d have to kill me first,” Scott said. “A true alpha’s power works differently, so he’d need the talons to syphon it, I think.”

Scott’s phone rang. He fumbled to answer without looking and hold it with his shoulder.

Stiles mumbled, “We should have set up the bluetooth.”

Scott glared at Stiles briefly but focused back on driving and his call. “Hey, Isaac, I—” He was silent for a long moment as his eyes grew wider and redder.

Hayden grabbed the back of Stiles’ seat to tug herself forward. Her lips drew back in a snarl over clenched teeth. Stiles couldn’t hear whatever set them on edge.

Scott slammed the brakes. “I’m sorry. Get out.”

“What’s going on?” Stiles asked, but Hayden had already clambered out and opened his door. She grabbed him by his arm, and he barely managed to pull his cane out with him before she slammed the door shut and Scott sped off.

“Dorian hurt your friends,” Hayden said. She still held Stiles’ right arm and dragged him down the street. “Isaac was on the phone. He thinks Ethan is still alive. He doesn’t know for sure.”

“Shit.”

“How well is this bunker hidden?”

“It’s a short-term solution. How long do you need to heal?”

“I mostly am, but I’ll need another day or two before I’m strong enough to fight.” She frowned. “I’m not stronger than Theo even at my best.”

“I’m not asking you to fight Theo, just to help protect Trick if you can. They shouldn’t even be part of this.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

This part of town lacked the ominous underground tunnel entrances nearer the Dread Doctors’ operating theater, so they made do with a manhole cover. Hayden lifted it and helped Stiles onto the ladder. He moved slowly rather than risk overtaxing his bad leg. It wasn’t bothering him tonight, but he didn’t want to aggravate it before a fight. Once Stiles was down, Hayden climbed onto the ladder holding Stiles’ cane and passed it down to him before pulling the manhole cover shut above them.

The moonlight had seemed faint before, but the darkness now was nearly complete. Stiles hooked his cane over his forearm and pulled his phone out for light, but Hayden hissed at him.

“Put that away!”

“I don’t have darkvision.”

“I’ll guide you. Put it away.”

Stiles did, but he frowned through it. Hayden took his right hand and began walking.

“Anyone else down here could see that from much farther off than the light would let us see them,” Hayden explained in a whisper.

“I know. You’re right. I shut it off, didn’t I?”

“I was explaining because I snapped at you. I’m sorry.”

“I am too. I should have known better.”

“I’m sorry for not coming to you sooner too. Lydia tried so hard to get me to open up to her, but I was afraid making friends with you all would make things worse.”

“I get it. You were trying to protect your sister, right?”

“...You can’t see, but I just nodded.”

Stiles nodded too.

“Everyone else’s families too. Theo threatened them all, and our friends. Corey was talking to Mason—the one who was possessed by the Beast—at school but had to stop because Theo invited Mason to a pack meeting. I know that doesn’t sound bad, but…”

“But making someone pack is a threat when it’s Theo. He didn’t want you all making new friends.”

“There’s a step up here.” Hayden guided him past it. “I can’t stop thinking that if I’d done something sooner, Josh would still be alive.”

“Don’t. Theo’s actions aren’t your fault.”

“I know he made his own decisions, but so did I.”

“Yeah, well, so did I. Brooding over it won’t stop Theo from killing you all now.”

“Hiding only delays it.”

 _“You’re_ hiding. I won’t be staying.”

“You can’t get back out of here without me.”

“I can if I don’t mind being seen, which I don’t, since starting a fight is my plan.”

“We already know your plans are terrible.”

“I admit, I expected to still have a ride once we dropped you off.” He chewed at the thumbnail of his free hand. “Dumbo can probably help. He must have driven Trick here.”

“Are you always this stubborn?”

“This is nothing.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“Actually, I’m going to get Theo killed. Or really, really beat up. Scott doesn’t like the k-word.”

“I’m starting to remember why I didn’t ask you for help.”

Stiles shrugged.

“Just stay in the bunker with us until I’m strong enough to fight him with you,” Hayden insisted.

“You said that would be days. Besides, I don’t want anyone else nearby when I fight him. I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

“What about Dumbo? Can he protect Trick?”

“He has some sort of combat training, but if Theo brings Tracy, she won’t have any trouble paralyzing everyone.”

“I know you never trusted Theo. Why weren’t you ready for this?”

“Why weren’t _you?”_ Stiles stopped himself, took a slow breath, in and out. “Sorry. I let myself believe he was a problem for later.”

“Yeah. I let myself believe it would get better once Theo and the pack were strong enough.”

“What’s enough?”

“That’s the problem. For Theo, I don’t think anything is.” She stopped moving and knocked on the wall several times. “Ah.” She let go of Stiles’ hand.

Stiles heard her moving but couldn’t see what she was doing. A thin crack of pale light grew in a vertical line against the wall. Light from behind the wall. Hayden squinted against it and gasped. It took Stiles’ eyes a moment longer to adjust, by which time Dumbo was lowering the shotgun he had aimed at the opening door.

“There is a gun in my pocket, and also my hands, but I am very happy to see you,” Dumbo said. “Now get the hell inside before anyone else sees you too.”

**.x.**

The light in the Argent bunker was dim, but even it seemed bright compared to the darkness in the sewer outside. The wall nearest the door was bare, except for Lidesh Tuanwend, standing in Stiles’ blind spot. He was a short but sturdy man with a square face and broad features. Tuanwend gave Stiles a serious nod before breaking into a wide smile.

Stiles returned the nod as Hayden tugged him forward into the space.

Shelves lined the other walls—those visible to Stiles, anyway. A large shelf crossed the room, so tightly packed with a mix of metal and wooden crates that they obscured the room beyond. To the far left lay an opening between the shelves, out of which Trick stepped. They moved cautiously at first and launched themself forward once they recognized Stiles.

“What took so long?” Though their voice sounded angry, Trick had pulled Stiles into a hug before they finished their sentence.

A stray curl of dark purple hair tickled Stiles’ nose as he hugged them back. He pulled away rather than risk sneezing on them. Trick’s eyes met Stiles’, and even though they had to be terrified at hiding in a secret bunker from a murderous werewolf, Trick’s gaze and hands remained steady.

Stiles said, “Scott got called away, so we walked more than expected. At my pace. not hers.” He motioned back to Hayden.

“Right now, mine isn’t better,” Hayden said. “Is there somewhere I can sit?”

“We pulled some boxes down.” Trick led them past the shelves to where the others had set several wooden crates on the ground, using some as chairs and others as tables.

Anastacia Rivera gave Stiles a nod from where she sat. She had long hair and sad eyes, though they lit up at seeing Hayden and Stiles arrive. While Dumbo and Tuanwend had been dressed casually—and Trick only ever dressed casually, if in different styles as their whims dictated—Rivera wore her Watchtower uniform. The Tower logo had been removed in favor of a Jester patch.

Stiles leaned against the shelves and let everyone settle down before he told them, “I can’t stay.”

“You can’t stay.” Trick’s tone was much too flat.

“Theo is hunting Hayden, and no one else is free to fight him. Besides, since I can hold things at range, I have the best chance of keeping Tracy from paralyzing me.”

“Sounds fake.”

“You’re supposed to end that with, ‘but okay.’”

“It ain’t.”

“What is it you expect me to do?”

Trick jumped back to their feet. “Ideally, go back in time and prevent yourself from ever being kidnapped. Realistically, not run off alone to battle an enemy pack.”

Stiles hung his cane from the shelf so he could cross his arms and pretend to think it over. “We don’t know how much worse the timeline could become if we change it.”

“So you’re gonna be like that.”

Hayden said, “Maybe I can get Corey to help. We’re not really an enemy pack. Just… Theo can be a problem sometimes.”

“A homicidal problem,” Stiles pointed out.

“Which is why you shouldn’t face him alone,” Hayden argued.

Trick gave Hayden a nod.

Stiles threw up his hands. “Well, no one here has magic healing powers, and no one out there is available to fight. I’m definitely not letting him near my dad. Also, Dad has to account for any bullets he fires, and the department’s not likely to be on board with, ‘loaded one werewolf-coyote hybrid chimera and one werewolf-kanima hybrid chimera with just enough bullets to slow them down, which means all the bullets. Please give me more bullets.’” Unless they had the same healing issues as Hayden, but Stiles was neither going to suggest nor count on that.

Trick’s brows rose from where they’d furrowed over their dark eyes as Stiles spoke. He didn’t count it a victory that they looked worried about him. Worried was worse than angry for Trick.

“Mostly the first thing, I assume,” Rivera said, interrupting Stiles’ thoughts.

“Yeah, I got rambly,” he mumbled.

Dumbo said, “We’ve got bullets, assuming whoever this stuff belongs to doesn’t mind.”

“Argents, and sort of,” Stiles replied.

“We’re not leaving Trick here alone, Dumbo,” Tuanwend said.

“Or bringing them with us,” Rivera added before Dumbo could suggest it.

Trick pitched their voice to a whisper even though the space was small enough for the others to hear anyway, “They’re getting a bit fed up with him, I think.”

“Oh, they’re always like this.” Dumbo grinned.

“...They’re always fed up with him,” Trick corrected. They shook their head. “I’m not a fighter, but I don’t want to be the reason someone else is in danger. Do you think they might go after your dad?”

Hayden asked, “Why didn’t your dad take cover if you’re worried about him?”

“I don’t think anyone’s after my dad, but I don’t want _him_ to be the one to try to take any of them on in my place. If he took cover, it would probably be here, but you,” Stiles pointed to Hayden, “wanted to stay away from him to keep him safe. I agree with you on that, by the way.”

“Why let me draw danger to Trick?” Hayden asked. She hadn’t known Trick before but must have immediately realized they were a mostly defenseless human the moment they met.

“They are also a target, so you’re both already in danger. Now you’re being in danger together.”

“Theo’s not after them, which means Watchtower is, and we’re just compounding our dangers.”

“We are working with limited resources.”

Trick spoke over Stiles to say, “I told him to bring you. You’re hurt, and you need help.”

“Theo knows this town better than anyone who could be after you, so he’s more likely to find this place than they are. The risk is worse for you than for me.”

“But you still came,” Trick pointed out. “You know you need help.”

Hayden bit her lip.

Stiles mumbled, “We should have made Scott’s dad drive you since he’s the reason you’re hurt.”

Hayden grimaced but shook her head. “He apologized at the house, and in his defense, I did lunge at him. I was going to knock him out and tie him up, but he didn’t know that.”

“Don’t defend him,” Stiles said.

Dumbo snickered. “Stiles, the only reason you haven’t shot a werewolf you shouldn’t have is that you don’t carry a gun.”

“Then maybe he should also stop carrying a gun.”

Trick held up a hand to stop them before Dumbo and Stiles found their way into an actual argument and asked Hayden, “Do you know why you’re healing so slowly?”

“Maybe because of Theo taking my power, but it had been weeks since he used the garuda talons on any of us even before we split them. I should have recovered by now.”

“You were shot, right? Was it a normal gun or a hunter’s… whatever hunters do to make guns worse?”

“The bullet shattered, but there was nothing supernatural about it.”

Trick frowned in thought.

Hayden said, “Theo didn’t say why he stopped using the talons. Maybe he could tell something was wrong.” Hayden gave a half shrug but winced in pain.

Stiles smacked his forehead. “I’m a dumbass and forgot I can take pain now. Do you need me to? Could it help?”

“I don’t think the pain is stopping me from healing.”

“But, I mean, would it be nice to pop a few magical pain pills? Metaphorically.”

Hayden hesitated. She nodded.

As Stiles walked toward her, Hayden stood to meet him. He grasped her arm with his left hand and activated the talisman on that wrist. Trick frowned a little. They and Stiles had fought almost constantly while forming the joker tattoo, and Trick always seemed uneasy when they focused on it. Stiles concentrated on Hayden, sensing the pain in her abdomen so he could draw it out.

None of the pain felt like a bullet shard he’d missed, but he never counted on that being the solution here. As he drew out Hayden’s pain, the tattoo changed color. The thorn-covered vines turned black starting at his wrist, and the roses darkened as well when the change reached them along the vines. It reminded Stiles of the way a werewolf's veins darkened while taking pain.

Hayden sighed, tension melting from her shoulders as the pain faded. While Stiles couldn’t take it all—the wound made more pain in real time even if he could have—he could take enough to offer a reprieve. Except—

“Something’s wrong,” Stiles said as he felt it. “Under the pain.”

“What?”

It was like Hayden’s blood ran sour, tainted.

“Try to feel it,” Trick ordered sharply.

No, it ran deeper than her blood. Every piece of Hayden, every atom, felt off.

“I don’t understand,” Stiles said.

Hayden pulsed out of sync with the world. Her heart beat a rhythm out of time, not just with Stiles’ heart, but somehow with her own, offset from itself. Stiles’ heart tried to match it and stuttered. He gasped.

“That tattoo doesn’t do what either of us expects. Remember how we struggled to form it? Our wills couldn’t align. You pushed me to complete it anyway, and I told you something would come of it. I worried it’d be bad, but maybe it can help Hayden.”

Hayden breathed. Faster, faster. She asked what Stiles was doing, and her voice echoed through something more than the small bunker. It pushed at his mind, not at his thoughts, not at his plans. It pushed like the walls he struggled against, like the illusions he never quite saw through, like the bonds he came short of ever understanding.

“This is how they made you,” Stiles muttered.

It wasn’t enough to sense her. The talisman let him sense pain _and_ access it. If the talisman let him sense more, it must let him access more too.

But this was a psychic effect. The talisman was magic.

Was it?

Of course, but was it _only_ magic?

Stiles and Trick had used magic to make it, drawn primarily from Stiles’ blood and will. Willpower was psychic as much as magical.

He tried to reach for Hayden at the frequency the Doctors shifted her to in the way he reached through the talisman for pain. He hit a wall. It blocked his passage just like the psychic walls Cole had conjured. Glossy black glass made the bricks, though they were easily as hard as stone. The bricks reflected Stiles’ face back at him, tattooed, scarred, scowling, the image broken only by grout filled with glittering like the twinkling of distant stars.

Maybe he needed to combine the magic of his talisman with the meager psychic training he’d endured.

He imagined the tools to save her because his will alone was never enough for psychic challenges. It was medical, what they did. They called themselves Dread Doctors.

He hit the wall.

The needle he pictured broke. The scalpel crumbled to silvery dust. Stiles wasn’t a doctor. These tools weren’t his.

“What are you doing?”

If he couldn’t bypass the wall, he needed to break through. He imagined a hammer and chisel to strike the wall. The chisel shattered.

That had worked in Watchtower. Why didn’t it work here?

The wall stood.

Hayden was behind the wall.

Something more than Hayden was behind the wall.

Stiles reached a hand to press against the smooth brick that formed the wall. This was not the Doctor’s work. They worked in medicine pushed past the point of torture. This wall had no scientific purpose. No functionality. It merely stood, towering over Stiles and holding him back from Hayden and _something._

What was behind the wall?

Who built the wall?

“What’s he waiting for? Something’s not right.”

Theo had Cole’s research now, but, no, she’d written it in code. He couldn’t have cracked it so soon. Theo could not have built so imposing a wall as this.

Stiles reached his hand through strangely glittering mortar to grip one of the bricks.

 _No,_ a deep part of Stiles thought. _This one is load-bearing._

Stiles focused toward that thought and found his mind once again at the wall. He pulled on the brick, shifting it only half an inch forward.

It wrenched at _him._

 _This is me. This has to be. Without this, it’s my fault. Without this, I have to be something else. I_ need _this._

Stiles found the part of himself fighting against him, arguing against him. It was the wall. Stiles built it.

He had told Derek he built himself from the pieces Watchtower left him.

Stiles built this wall. Not his self. A barrier.

Hayden was behind it now. _Stiles_ was behind it.

This wall was Joker. Joker was an excuse.

Could he survive without Joker?

Could he help Hayden heal with Joker intact? No.

But could he survive? Did he want to?

It wasn’t enough to blame Haha, No or Watchtower or the trauma Stiles had endured. They had hurt him, but Stiles was the one who needed to move past it. Stiles was the one who clung to his pain, who trapped his identity behind it. It wasn’t enough to blame the others when they weren’t the ones who could change it now. _Stiles_ built this wall, and he would be the one to tear it down.

If he could. If he wanted to.

What would happen to him when he did?

He realized he wanted to see what he looked like without it, not just for Hayden, for himself too.

“Let him work. He can do this.”

Stiles ripped the brick free, and the wall crashed down around him.

Stiles lifted Hayden’s free hand and set it against the joker tattoo. He imagined the barbs of the wire puncturing her skin to drain the poison the Doctors set flowing through her. He pressed the roses into a poultice and spread it over the wounds. He stretched out the fibers of the playing card into fabric and bandaged over it. All in his mind only, but Hayden sagged against him, and her heart beat in time with his, and her world resynced with his, no longer set to a frequency he couldn’t reach.

Stiles braced his good leg as the other struggled under Hayden’s sudden weight. If only she had leaned against him _slowly._

“What did you do?” Hayden whispered.

“The Doctors left your psychic frequency out of sync with this reality. It was getting worse over time without them to calibrate it since it’s not your natural frequency. I set it back.”

“Help me sit.”

“I can’t move. Trick, a hand? Or, well, leg?”

Trick took Hayden’s arm over their shoulders and guided her back to her seat. Stiles limped to one the others had left free for him and worked his knee.

“Are you okay?” Hayden asked with worry in her voice. And maybe a little guilt.

“Yeah, just stiff. Already getting better.” He stood and bent his knees a few times to demonstrate.

“Sit down, you goober,” Trick ordered.

Stiles sat.

“Sir—Are we still supposed to call you ‘sir’?” Rivera asked.

“I don’t care.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be, you know, a weak psychic?”

“I am.”

“But you…” She motioned at Hayden.

“I’m not incapable. It’s just harder for me than it needs to be. And talismans help.” He held up his wrist. The tattoo’s color had returned to normal with green vines and blue roses that reached almost to violet in their shadows.

Rivera looked unconvinced.

Tuanwend said, “I’m pretty sure the telekinesis is also psychic, and he’s good at that.”

“It’s an extremely physical psychic ability,” Rivera countered.

Dumbo cut in, “He’s also very bad at it.”

“Hey,” Stiles complained.

Rivera said, “But he’s unusually powerful,” as Tuanwend snickered.

When Rivera gave him a sharp look, Tuanwend spread his hands and said, “I don’t get it either. It’s still funny.”

“If he was any good at it,” Dumbo explained, “he'd be able to use his full power and fine control consistently and simultaneously. Right now, he’s strongest with his mind is too fucked with to control himself, much less understand what he’s doing. Even with the magic talismans, I’m pretty sure the spade is the only one he actually knows how to use.” As he spoke, Dumbo’s tone shifted from flippant to contemptuous.

“Rude,” Stiles grumbled.

“It’s always weird when you know what you’re talking about,” Tuanwend told Dumbo.

“Also when you care about it,” Rivera added. “Why are you upset that Stiles isn’t more skilled with his superpowers?”

“Look, Riv, Tuan, you’d be bitter too if you were a supposedly all-powerful god watching your mortal children squander the gifts you gave them.”

Trick laughed.

“I should have known better.” Rivera sighed. “And my name is Ana or Rivera, not Riv.”

“You basically asked for that,” Stiles agreed. “Accusing him of having emotions.”

Trick shook their head and muttered under their breath before asking Dumbo, “How should Stiles get stronger? Obviously, his training so far isn’t cutting it.”

A grin spread over far too much of Dumbo’s face. He opened his mouth to explain.

“Quiet!” Hayden hissed.

They froze. Hayden squeezed her eyes shut and tilted her head to better catch sound. Stiles heard only his own breathing, but his hearing was weak even for a human in one ear and still not superhuman in the other.

Trick’s hand rested on Hayden’s shoulder. They squeezed gently. Their other hand clenched tightly at their side.

Rivera’s hand slid under her jacket, but her eyes stayed fixed on Hayden.

Tuanwend turned slowly toward the door, reaching just as slowly for the shotgun propped against the shelf at his side.

Dumbo looked calm. He watched Hayden only as much as he did everyone else.

Hayden let out a relieved sigh. “They moved on.”

“For now,” Dumbo said cheerily.

Stiles asked, “Who?”

Hayden grimaced. “Whoever it was, they were too far out for me to tell, but if they’d come closer, they might have noticed us too.”

“Not much we can do about it right now,” Stiles said. “Can you call Corey? The Doctors probably left him the same as you.”

“If I get signal.” She pulled her phone from her pocket.

Trick said, “You should. If it’s spotty, stand by that shelf.” They pointed. “We think the bunker was designed to allow communication with the outside, but phone signals seem strongest there.”

Hayden stood. Trick tried to help, but she had already recovered enough not to need it. She dialed as she walked to the shelf.

“She’s moving well,” Rivera said softly. “She’ll be able to fight soon.”

“We’re not supposed to fight,” Tuanwend reminded her.

“That’s for those of us on the Trickguard. _She_ has powers and seems like she wants to fight. Also, Stiles isn’t the boss of her and can’t tell her to hide here once she’s better.”

“Are you calling Stiles the boss of us?”

“We are literally here on his command, Lidesh. He’s our superior officer.”

“We don’t have officers, and when we did, we were technically turncoats following a charismatic traitor.”

“Are you calling Stiles charismatic?”

“You saw him make Sara punch Edmund. I don’t even think it was a nat twenty. I think he’s just got that high a modifier.”

“Sorry, I only play Fate.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Why are you two whisper bickering?” Stiles asked.

“We’ve been stuck in a room with Edmund. If we don’t, he starts worse nonsense,” Tuanwend said.

“He does,” Trick agreed with a wicked grin.

“He said to call him Dumbo,” Rivera reminded him.

“I did,” Dumbo agreed cheerfully, at normal volume even though everyone else was politely whispering.

Tuanwend rolled his eyes.

“His name’s not even Edmund,” Stiles complained.

Across the small room, Hayden growled. “He’s not answering. I’ll text in case he just can’t talk, but…”

“You’re worried,” Stiles finished for her.

“He hides sometimes, but never for long and never if we call several times in a row. Theo likes to remind Corey he can’t really hide from us, so Corey doesn’t push it.”

“Is there a chance Theo…” Stiles didn’t finish. He knew he didn’t have to.

“Maybe, but I think he would focus on hunting me down first.”

“You _are_ the one who stole from him.”

“And the one who left,” she agreed.

“How long until you’re strong enough to fight back?”

“Soon.” She smirked for a moment, but it softened into a smile. “Thank you.”

He nodded.

_You’re bashful._

_Aren’t you supposed to be busy?_ Stiles asked.

Stiles held up a finger and left it to the others to realize he wasn’t fully present for a moment.

Derek was lodged in a closet with Gregson at his back as two of Sorokin’s lackeys walked down the hall outside. The closet was acrid with the stink of chemical cleaners, but most of the space had been emptied. The sounds of fighting nearby had died down. Those that remained were more distant.

 _We can’t get back out without fighting. They’re—_ Derek groaned internally. _My exit plan has been foiled by the janitorial staff. They’re cleaning my escape route. During a battle. They should be hiding, not cleaning. It’s got to be some sort of trap._

_You sound more annoyed than worried._

_The word is exasperated, but I’m also worried. The other way to get out is to join Cat and Allison so we can punch back through the defenses._

_Join them with Haha, No._

_He has Sara’s eye, so she’s in favor._

_I trust your judgment almost as much as hers._

Derek suppressed a chuckle.

Gregson poked Derek’s back and waved when he looked.

_Sara says hi._

_I say hi back._

Derek waved to Gregson. He sighed softly. _She and I aren’t the ones I’m worried about._

_It’s me. When you see him._

_Yes._

_I won’t try that again._

_I know, but you’ll still want to see, won’t you?_ Derek paused, feeling… something within Stiles. _What happened. You’re…_ He didn’t quite find the words. ‘Different’ came close, but it was more than that. The difference between a garage and the open road. The difference between standing on a cliff looking down and plummeting toward the water below. Nothing Derek could grasp or explain, but it was there. He felt it.

 _I’m not going to be Joker anymore,_ Stiles thought and supplied the image Derek couldn’t. The wall crashing down.

_I thought you said Joker was part of you._

_The things that make up Joker are, so I don’t get to hide them behind their own name like they’re something separate from the rest of me._

_Maybe you aren’t so incapable of rebuilding yourself after all._

_I’ll still need you to keep me out so I don’t get distracted. I’m supposed to be fighting too._

_Alone?!_

_Hayden’s here. She’s almost better._

_Hayden is not an alpha._

_She’s what I’ve got._

Derek bared his teeth in a silent growl.

 _You do know I’m strong, right? Like really strong. Like_ you _called me stronger than you._

_You’re so reckless it cancels out._

_Wow._

_Am I wrong?_

_Not really._

“It’s him,” Hayden whispered. “He’s close.”

_Fuck._

“He hasn’t noticed us,” she added. “Do we hide or fight?”

 _Are you sure?_ Derek asked.

 _I was never going to be the one to beat Watchtower._ Not alone.

“Stiles?”

_Turn on the blocker._

Derek wore it on his wrist. He reached over to activate it…

And was gone.

Stiles stood. “We fight.”


	6. In Harmony

Stiles carried the flashlight they took from the bunker so Hayden could keep her hands free.

“Hurry,” she hissed, pushing aside the manhole cover above her.

Moonlight filtered down over them.

“Can you climb?” she whispered, for the stalking Theo’s benefit, not Stiles’.

“If you take these.” Stiles held up the flashlight in one hand and his cane in the other.

Hayden took them both and set them in the street above as Stiles began climbing, putting as little weight on his bad leg as possible. Hayden reached down to give him a hand and lifted him fully from the sewer.

“That works too,” Stiles said as she set him in the street. “Where are we?”

Hayden shrugged. “Empty road somewhere in town.” She lifted the manhole cover.

“Hayden!”

She dropped it at the sound of Theo’s voice.

Theo leapt through the hole, ignoring the ladder entirely. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Are you okay?”

“Better now,” Hayden said.

Tracy climbed out from the sewer, already transformed. Her tail lashed as she began to circle them.

“You took something,” Theo said. “I understand why. Just come back, and we can talk about it.”

“I know what you did to Josh.”

“You think you do, but you haven’t let me explain what happened.”

“Let you lie, you mean.”

Stiles tried to watch both opponents but had to turn to keep an eye on Tracy as she moved behind him. He had agreed to let Hayden take the lead. If she wanted to talk, then they would talk. Tracy had made no such promise as far as Stiles knew.

“That’s unfair,” Theo began.

“No! You’ve lied to us from the start, just like you’ve lied to everybody else.”

“I healed you. I’ve taken care of you, of all of you.”

“You would have let us die.”

“The berserkers overwhelmed Josh. You saw his body. You know he would have died slowly, in agony.”

“Even if that’s true, what you did wasn’t about mercy. It was about yourself and your lust for power.”

“We’re a small pack. We don’t have power to spare when one of our own is lost.”

“We’re not in any danger that you didn’t make for us! There are two other packs here. One, pacifists who would never harm us, and the other put their lives on the line to protect ours. We could have been safe. Josh could have lived! Maybe the others could have too. If not for you.”

“I AM YOUR ALPHA!” Theo roared.

Stiles spun reflexively toward the sound just long enough to see a flash of red in his eyes before turning back to Tracy. She had kept her distance, apparently waiting on Theo just as Stiles did Hayden. Stiles tried to split his attention, but Tracy made it difficult.

Hayden straightened her shoulders and stared Theo down. “Not anymore.”

“You think Scott will take you?” Theo sneered. “You think he _can?”_

“It doesn’t matter if I can join his pack. I’m leaving yours.”

“I won’t let you.”

“I thought you’d say that.”

“Do you think you can fight me, Hayden? Do you think you’re strong enough?”

“Maybe not, but I’m not alone.”

Theo and Tracy leapt for him at once, like they thought Stiles wouldn't expect that. Stiles nearly slammed them both back but wrapped his power around them instead, holding them both in midair. They struggled. Stiles held them still. He tried to search Theo for the other garuda talons, but it took all his power to hold them as they fought.

Hayden swung the flashlight against Tracy’s temple. Tracy stopped struggling, and her head lolled to one side. Hayden rubbed the flashlight under her claws, and it came away shiny with venom. As Stiles set Tracy down, Hayden rubbed the paralyzing venom over Theo’s hand. Stiles dropped Theo more roughly than he had Tracy.

“You’ll regret this,” Theo growled.

“What I regret is joining you in the first place,” Hayden said as she dug through his pockets. She found three talons and added them to those she already carried.

“Are you going to use those on me now?” Theo taunted. “Do you think you can lead them?”

Hayden ignored him and turned to Stiles. “Can you help Tracy like you did me?”

Stiles nodded. He needed to touch her to use the joker talisman. For a moment, he studied Theo, but he was paralyzed. Hayden wouldn’t need Stiles’ help. Stiles moved to sit beside Tracy.

Now that he knew what to expect, Stiles found Tracy’s offset frequency the moment he touched her. Though he couldn't know its effects, it wouldn’t have made her so loyal to Theo; otherwise, it would have done the same to Hayden, Corey, and Josh. Nothing Stiles sensed could explain that. She had simply chosen to follow a monster.

He felt the pain in her temple too, a dull throb. It echoed in Stiles’ head as he studied it, but it too seemed to pulse out of sync, giving him a headache of his own.

It took only a second to examine her, and Stiles began to heal her.

“No!” Tracy screamed.

She slashed her claws across Stiles’ chest. Her tail followed across his cheek as she leapt to her feet.

A dull throb, Stiles realized as he fell, his body no longer able to support itself. Too dull to knock her out.

Had Tracy and Theo planned this somehow? No time to wonder.

Only Stiles’ body was paralyzed. His mind could lift him, turn his body in time to see Tracy reach the others. Hayden kicked Tracy back, but her kanima tail lashed Hayden’s arm even as Tracy flew through the air.

Hayden stumbled back with a growl. Her eyes glowed gold, but her strength couldn’t fight the kanima’s venom. Stiles slowed her fall but couldn’t spare the strength to hold her upright.

After Tracy landed, skidding across the asphalt before clawing her way to a stop, she rushed right back to Theo’s side. As she bent to lift Theo, Stiles took hold of her again.

“The talons!” Theo growled, but Tracy couldn’t move to take them.

Stiles moved forward slowly, wary of toppling over as he carried himself to Theo’s side. This was trickier than holding someone else. Eventually, he would figure out if it was a matter of perspective or leverage. For now, he settled for trying not to fall on his face.

“She can’t move,” Stiles told him. He lifted his left arm and set his hand over Tracy’s skin. “Don’t freak out this time. I’m trying to help.”

“I don’t want your help!” Her eyes darted downward and widened when they found where Stiles’ feet weren’t on the ground.

Hayden said, “It’s okay, Tracy.”

Theo closed his eyes a moment. “Didn’t know you could fly.”

Stiles didn’t correct him. He worked through the mental imagery of healing Tracy as he had Hayden. The wire, the flowers, the card. She gasped as her frequency realigned.

“What was that?” Her question came out breathless.

Stiles felt his hold slipping. That had taken more of his power than he expected. He took the pain from her head to bolster himself, little as it was. He didn’t feel bolstered.

Hayden answered when Stiles didn’t, “Something the Dread Doctors did to us. Stiles can fix it.”

“I didn’t ask him to fix me!” She struggled. “Let me go! I don’t want your help!”

Pain pierced Stiles’ ankle. Something tugged him down. Shock broke Stiles’ hold on himself and Tracy alike. He slammed into the street.

Theo pulled his claws from Stiles’ ankle and pushed himself slowly up, struggling against the venom in his system. Tracy took Theo’s arm and pulled him to his feet.

“Hayden,” Theo said, leaning heavily against Tracy. “Do you see yet that you can’t fight me? For all of Stiles’ power, he can’t keep me down. He can’t protect you. I’m still your alpha. I always will be.”

“No!” Hayden struggled but could not stand.

Stiles pushed Theo over and stunned Tracy when she turned to fight him. Theo stumbled. One knee hit the ground, but he launched off it toward Stiles. Asphalt tore at Stiles’ back before he realized Theo had knocked him down. With a scream of mixed pain and anger, Stiles shoved Theo off him and slammed him to the ground.

The stun wore off Tracy while Stiles pulled himself off the street. She lashed him with her tail, but he was already paralyzed. Stiles gripped her with a thought and lost his hold on Theo.

Theo’s claws raked Stiles’ scalp before Stiles could stop him. Tracy grabbed Stiles’ throat.

He could not hold both them and himself.

Stiles toppled to the ground, but he held Tracy and Theo away from himself above the street. He couldn’t do more than hold them still. They had hurt him. He was sore and bleeding. Wasn’t pain supposed to make him stronger?

“This is the most you can do for now,” Theo said. “Otherwise, you’d already have beaten us. Hayden can’t help you, and your stamina will run out before ours.”

Stiles grunted.

“There’s no one to help you, Stiles, so let’s work this out. I have Cole’s research. I can help you use your power. You should be able to do more than this.”

Stiles _could_ do more than this.

He hurt. His bad knee ached like it hadn’t for months; he had landed on it when he dropped himself. Pain was fuel. Wasn’t it? It had to be. When he was hurt, he was strong. Cole put him through a psychic pain test when she gave him this power, and he’d been stronger then than any time after. When they fought the Doctors and the Beast, when Stiles’ body had been more broken than any other time in his life, Stiles had been strong enough to throw the monstrous werewolf like a ragdoll, until he’d passed out. Pain had to be fuel.

He just needed more fuel. More pain. He tried to move his leg. Even twitching it weakly hurt like hell.

Stiles wasn’t any stronger.

If it wasn’t pain…

There had been one other time when Stiles’ strength got away from him. When Derek roared.

And one other, Stiles realized, one he hadn’t noticed. When he stopped Peter and Theo fighting, Stiles shook the building around them. At the time, he hadn’t known it was possible, but he’d been reading Peter through the bond, Peter who teetered on the brink of losing control of himself as he wrangled his own newly increased strength.

It wasn’t pain. It was when Stiles lost control and couldn’t hold himself back anymore. Scott was right. That strength was part of something Stiles didn’t want to be.

His cane rose.

Stiles hadn't done that.

The cane swung at Tracy’s head. Once, twice. By the third blow, Corey had grown visible holding the cane, panting with effort and terror. Tracy hung limp in Stiles’ psychic grasp.

“I got your text,” Corey said in a shaky voice.

“You could have texted back,” Hayden choked out from where she lay paralyzed.

“Check Tracy,” Stiles ordered.

Corey checked her eyes, pulse, and breathing. “She’s out cold, but she’ll be fine. I’m not strong enough to really hurt her. Or, I guess I am, but that’s not the kind of strength I’d use on someone’s head, and if she could move, she’d kick my ass, but… I’m rambling. Sorry.”

Stiles let Tracy down.

“Help me to Theo.” He doubted he could spare the power to carry himself there.

Corey hesitated. “Are you going to hurt him?”

“He deserves to be hurt,” Hayden growled.

Corey waited for Stiles’ answer.

“I’m going to try to help him. And you, Corey, but probably later.”

“Why?” Theo asked. “Why are you still trying to help us?”

Stiles grunted as Corey pulled him upright and dragged him over to Theo.

“Scott told me killing hurts the killer too. I think he was right. You might be the only ones we’re fighting tonight who we can save instead.”

“Instead of what?”

“Kill.” As Corey lowered him, Stiles said, “I need my left hand touching him.”

“You’re getting weak if you can’t move it on your own,” Theo sneered.

“I’m saving my strength for you, asshole.”

Stiles’ breath caught as his hand touched Theo. The wrongness in him ran deeper and fouler than the others. His blood practically boiled with it. When Stiles tried to prick him, the poison gathered into clots rather than flow free.

“I’m not like the others, am I?” Theo asked.

“Do you know what they did to you?” Stiles asked.

“They made me powerful. They made me a killer.” He paused. “I never noticed any hurt from it.”

Stiles pressed his forehead against Theo’s, too distracted to know if he’d used his body or mind to move. “You can’t feel that?”

Theo gasped. “What are you…?”

Stiles didn’t have an answer for that. He had never felt someone’s mind without a bond before. “Part of you is gone, and they filled the space it left with poison.”

“My heart,” Theo whispered. “They replaced my heart.”

Stiles pictured the vine-wrapped barbed wire winding around Theo’s body, piercing his skin at a hundred points. The poison seeped out and blackened the flowers. The tattoo on Stiles’ arm darkened.

“They told me to let my sister freeze so they could put her heart in my chest.”

There had to be more that Stiles could do. He had broken through the wall and reached Hayden. Why couldn’t he reach Theo?

The wall stood in pieces, but its rubble surrounded Stiles still. He needed to clear it away. He needed _time_ to clear it away.

Beyond the remains of Stiles’ mental block, Theo’s stood strong, a wall of ice. Theo’s mind hid behind it. Stiles couldn’t spare the time to wonder how he saw it. It must be the talisman. He could figure the specifics out later.

If Stiles let Theo go now, he would never return to Stiles to finish this.

If Stiles couldn’t clear the rubble to reach Theo alone, then Theo would have to meet him halfway. Stiles tried to reach the wall separating Theo from him, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t his to shatter.

“Theo, you have to help me. This is more than I can do.”

“I killed my sister for this, Stiles.”

“Don’t just let it happen anymore. Fix it. Fight them. Fight what they did to you. It _did_ hurt you. I think it broke you, but you don’t have to be what they made you. You don’t have to stay what you made of yourself either. You can move on. Starting now, here, with healing yourself.”

“That’s not how this works. I killed her, and I stole her heart and made it into a part of me.”

“Damnit, Theo. We can’t get your old heart back, but we can save this one. You think she wants this poison pumping through her heart?”

“I think she wants it back.”

“We’ll have to settle for what we can do.”

“Even if she can’t forgive me?”

“She can’t stop you either.”

Theo charged through the mental barricade and reached for the barbed wire with his mind to pull it tighter until the poison gushed from him. Stiles’ tattoo blackened entirely, showing only in silhouette on his wrist. The wilted flowers blossomed anew, and their blackened petals spread to reveal galaxies of stars shining within. They burst and collapsed into a glittering poultice not entirely unlike the grout that held the bricks of Stiles’ psychic wall, but soft and healing where the grout had been rough and binding. Stiles and Theo wrapped the wounds in a bandage of black ribbon covered in flowing nebulas.

Theo took a long, deep breath. His brows furrowed in an unspoken question, like his breath before must have carried something other than air to his lungs. With his frequency finally realigned after living in sync with a great evil instead of his own world, everything must feel completely new. Or maybe some part of him remembered the world of his childhood and only now realized it was one he could reach again.

Stiles fell back against Corey, who supported him in the street. The darkness began fading from Stiles’ tattoo, but the ink it revealed had transformed.

The barbed wire was gone, replaced by streams of star-stuff flowing behind the thorn-covered vines. The roses had darkened but remained blue, dotted by the tiny lights of further, distant stars. The Joker was gone, or changed. The figure on the card knelt with one foot in a pool of water beneath an eight-pointed star, pouring water from between their hands back into the pool.

“I feel it,” Theo whispered.

He lay on the ground still, though Stiles lacked the strength to hold him there. Theo’s right hand rested on his chest over his heart, rising and falling as he breathed in deeply.

Theo turned his head toward Stiles to ask, “Was I worth it? Did I deserve this?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I know you changed something in yourself Stiles. I don’t know how, but I felt it. How do you know—”

“We don’t earn what happens to us by being good or bad. So I don’t care if you were worth it, and I don’t care if you, or I, deserve forgiveness. That’s not something you earn; it’s something the person you wronged chooses to give away. Redemption is what we have to work at, so we might as well take the chance while it’s here.”

“And how long do we have to work before we’re redeemed?”

“I don’t know. A few years? As long as we spent hurting people? Forever?”

Theo chuckled. “And what if that’s not the way I go? What if it was all for nothing?”

“Doesn’t matter what you do. It wasn’t for nothing. Not for me.”

“I don’t think what you’re saying is something I can do—”

“You can—”

“—alone. Something I can do _alone._ Will you help me?”

“As much as I can.”

“That’s all I can ask. Thanks, I guess.” Theo closed his eyes and let out another long breath.

With any luck, that would be enough. _Stiles_ would be enough.

For years, Stiles believed Joker was the part of him that kept him strong enough to fight. Now he knew assigning parts of himself their own identity disassociated him from his actions and trapped him behind the persona. Joker wasn’t violent, cruel, reckless, manipulative, or power-hungry. Stiles was. Without the mask and the mental wall he’d built it into, what else would Stiles become?

He thought of Derek, deliberately rebuilding himself into a man he could be proud of piece by piece no matter how long it took.

Stiles had said he couldn’t do that, but why not? Because he lacked patience? Because he never believed he deserved better? Because it would have meant giving up Joker as a shield?

Because he couldn’t imagine a good version of himself.

But he could now.

Instead of someone who killed his enemies, Stiles could become someone who saved those who needed help.

**.x.**

Stiles gathered his party and Theo’s together and, after getting the all-clear from Scott, brought them all to his house. He wasn’t sure where else to go, or whether the chimeras needed to stay with him. After resting a while, he used his star talisman to help Corey reset his frequency, but the chimeras still lingered. They were a mess, so Stiles lent them clothes and towels so they could clean up. They were tired and thirsty, so Stiles set them up in the living room and brought them drinks.

They sat around, staring at each other or at nothing, unsure what to do now that Theo had first betrayed and then rejoined everyone.

Rivera and Tuanwend asked if Stiles still needed guards for himself and Trick. When he didn’t, they left. Tuanwend hugged him on the way out and whispered, “Doesn’t matter if the Tower’s gone. We’ve all got your back.”

Stiles hugged back with one arm, still leaning heavily on his cane. His knee had not yet forgiven him for the fight.

Over Tuanwend’s shoulder, Stiles saw Rivera nod.

Tuanwend pulled back with a grin and a wink for Stiles. “See that you’ve got ours too.”

“I will, but I’m stupid, so you’ve gotta tell me outright, okay?”

“Roger roger.”

Rivera rolled her eyes. “Stiles, you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.”

“Maybe it’s being smart that makes me stupid.”

Tuandwend laughed while Rivera shook her head and pulled him away. “Come on,” she urged. “We’ve still got work to do.”

Stiles raised an eyebrow because he hadn’t given any orders, so she pointed behind him to Dumbo, still technically his acting lieutenant.

When they had gone, Dumbo said, “They’re going to see if Trick’s apartment and shop are safe. We think Dorian was here alone, but, really, what the hell do we know?” After a pause, he added, “Don’t look at me like that. I don’t _have_ to tell you I suspect rainbow alien rabbit people. I just like to.”

Stiles blinked, not sure how to respond. Trick was in Noah’s office, in the armchair they’d set up by the window for Derek.

“I’m going to talk to the chimeras,” Stiles said. “Stay with Trick for the moment.”

Dumbo saluted with a flourish that turned the motion into a peace sign.

Theo eyed Stiles warily as Dumbo left the room. He leaned back on the couch with one foot on the coffee table as if he could look casual despite the obvious tension in his shoulders and brow. His eyes darted periodically to the exits, always returning to Stiles. Tracy leaned against Theo with her legs curled tight against her torso. She held a mug of tea in both hands without drinking. Corey stood against the wall farthest from Theo without leaving the living room. He kept fading in and out of sight even though Theo never looked at him. Hayden sat in one of two armchairs with her legs crossed. She’d accepted only a glass of water and sipped it occasionally as she glared openly at Theo.

Stiles dropped heavily into the other armchair at her side, and Hayden spared him a smile.

Stiles took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure what, exactly, he needed to do here. Something, probably. The chimeras weren’t his responsibility; he knew that. He also knew that if he let Theo go now, what little progress Theo had made would be lost. It didn’t have to be Stiles’ responsibility for him to do something about it.

“So,” Stiles said, “I don’t think the issues the Dread Doctors left you with are what made you an asshole.”

Theo chuckled. “We’ve talked about that already. I might have been born an asshole.”

“I recently discovered assholery is a curable condition. If you want your pack to survive being yours, you should look into it too.”

“We’re not his anymore,” Hayden said.

Tracy hissed, “I am.”

Corey blinked out of sight.

Theo said, “What trite sentimentality do you recommend to better myself?”

“You have to work at it.”

Theo rolled his eyes.

“Dude, you’re not going to magically discover a secret moral heart inside you. You’re fucking evil. So just use your brain instead of your heart, and do better things.”

“I cannot believe you’re telling me the secret to morality is homework.”

“I mean, you might still personally be immoral. But maybe you won’t murder your friends for their power if you practice protecting them instead.”

Hayden said, “I’m not going to help him.”

Theo frowned. “If no one will help me, how do I learn?”

Stiles snapped his fingers loudly to draw Theo’s attention back to himself. “First of all, the people you hurt are not the ones responsible for teaching you. That’s on _you._ Entirely. No one else is responsible for you, not even the Doctors who made you what you are. Second of all, I’m sitting right the fuck here offering to help. Obviously, I’m no beacon of goodness, but I’m no worse than you.”

Theo clenched his jaw. He eyed Hayden, and the spot where Corey was invisible. Then he turned his eyes on Tracy. “Fine,” he said. “What do you want me to do?”

“First thing is accept that Hayden and Corey are going to make their own decisions about how much they’ll interact with you, if at all. Tracy too, but I get the feeling she wants to stay with you.”

“So I’m just supposed to accept that I don’t have a pack anymore?” Theo growled.

“Yes.”

In a calmer voice than she had used before, Tracy said, “I won’t leave you, Theo.”

Theo nodded stiffly.

Hayden turned back to Corey. “It’s okay,” she told him. “I’m leaving. You can too.”

Corey showed himself slowly, fading into sight against the wall. His hands shook, but the nod he gave Hayden before turning to Theo was resolute. When he spoke, his voice was firm. “I’m leaving your pack, Theo.”

“Fine.” Theo spoke through clenched teeth.

“Change is hard,” Stiles said with such exaggerated compassion Theo couldn’t help but recognize its insincerity. Stiles shook his head. “See? I’m also still inclined to just be an ass all the time.” He laughed at himself, but no one else joined him.

“Is it okay if we go home now?” Corey asked.

“I’m not the boss of you any more than Theo is,” Stiles said. “If you feel safe enough to go, then yeah. The others should be on their way here if you want to wait for an escort.”

Most of the others. Peter and Malia wouldn’t return for at least a day or two. Stiles had no way of knowing if their part of the fight had even begun. He tried to sense Peter but came up blank.

“Oh.” Corey looked down at his shoes. “Hayden, do you want to stay?”

She stood. “I was going to talk to Lydia, but I can do that later.”

“I can go alone,” Corey said. “I was more making sure you didn’t need me here.”

“Let’s go together anyway.” Hayden offered Corey her hand, and the two left with a nod and a wave for Stiles.

“What now?” Theo asked, voice still stiff with bitterness.

“I don’t know,” Stiles answered. “I’ll need more help myself if I want to help you; I’ll figure it out.”

Theo turned away, still looking irritated. When his gaze reached the surgeon’s cane, he asked, “Where did you get that?”

“I blasted a hole through the wall into the room holding it during my daring escape. Do you recognize it?”

Theo leveled a deadpan stare at Stiles.

“I meant, do you know why he had a spare?”

“It’s not a spare. It’s the inspiration for reshaping his other blade. It wasn’t always a cane.”

“So he bought a sword cane at the shop and was like, by golly, I think I should adjust my magical metal to match?”

“I wasn’t exactly there.”

“Is this the most important thing for us to talk about right now?” Tracy asked.

“No,” Theo answered as Stiles said, “Definitely not.”

“We agreed on something.” Stiles grinned. “I’m so proud of us.”

“You’re more insufferable than I realized.”

“What should we talk about?” Tracy directed the question to Theo.

Rather than answering directly, Theo asked Stiles, “In the street, how did you reach me? I felt…” He trailed off, furrowing his brow.

“I don’t know that either. I’m guessing this.” He held up his left arm to show Theo the tattoo. “It’s not really what we thought we were making, and wouldn’t have done me much good if it was, so…” He shrugged.

“Oh, so I’m _your_ experiment too.”

“I wasn’t doing fucking science, Theo. I was trying to save you.”

Theo clenched his jaw and stared at the wall.

“You were right,” Tracy told Theo. “About lasting effects from the Doctor’s experiments.”

Theo nodded but didn’t look at her.

“We’re going to be okay now,” she assured him.

“You are,” Theo agreed. “It wouldn’t have killed me.”

Tracy sighed.

The silence got too awkward for Stiles, so he asked Theo, “Do you want to wait here for Scott?”

“No.”

“You’ll have to talk to him eventually.”

“I know.” Theo scowled. “He’s going to be even worse than you.”

“Tonight’s already been a lot. If you want to avoid him, maybe you and Tracy should head out too.”

“You’re letting us go?”

“You’re not prisoners.”

“I think we need to trust Stiles,” Tracy said. “I wish he’d waited for my permission before doing anything to me,” she shot him a glare, “but I do feel better now.”

Stiles grimaced. “Sorry, Tracy. You’re right. I mean, I think you were trying to kill me, but I guess I’m supposed to stop using excuses so much. I should have stopped when you told me to.”

“I wasn’t trying to kill you. I was trying to paralyze you; it just didn’t work.”

Theo said, “I was trying to kill Hayden, and you were in the way. I guess that means _I_ was trying to kill you.”

Tracy turned to Theo. “You said you just wanted to explain to her.”

“I lied.”

She looked down. Took a moment. “Come on. We should go.” She stood and offered Theo a hand.

They left together. Stiles leaned back and stared at the ceiling. He might be in over his head.

“We were spying on you,” Trick said.

Stiles jumped at their voice and swore a little too loudly when it jolted his knee. “I’m fine,” he said as Trick opened their mouth. “I should have known it was too quiet back there.” Stiles motioned to the office the others had left behind.

“You did pretty okay,” Trick continued, a little more cautiously than they usually would. “I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks, I think.”

Trick laughed.

“Well, I’m not.” Dumbo swept through and threw himself onto the couch where he lounged so outrageously he managed to take up all three cushions on his own. “Next time demand Theo bring Josh back from the dead.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Stiles said.

“Maybe for peasants like you lot.”

Trick took the armchair Hayden had vacated but leaned sideways with one leg slung over the armrest. “Excuse you, I’m artisan class.”

“Peasant artisan.”

“Is _that_ why you’ve never asked me for a tattoo?”

“Indubitably.”

“Sure you’re not just afraid of needles?”

“Ha! As if they could puncture my noble skin.”

“Your pampered ass has never encountered anything sharper than a teddy bear in its life.”  
“It was a teddy bear fashioned from knives made of razor-sharp platinum.”

“It was a bad dream from which you woke crying for your mommy.”

“Well, it’s a crime for nightmares to dare penetrate my lofty skull.”

_We’re pulling up outside,_ Derek thought. _If you think you can spare a second from such… I honestly can’t think of anything to say that mocks them better than they do themselves._

“I’ll be back,” Stiles said. “You two carry on.”

Dumbo laughed. “As if you could have stopped us.”

Trick faux-sneered. “Wow, asshole. Some of us would be considerate enough to let it go if he asked.”

“As previously discussed, some of us—you, specifically—are mere peasants.”

Stiles left them to it and headed out the front door to meet Derek as he arrived with Allison, Cat, and Gregson.

Stiles pulled Gregson—Sara—in for a hug the moment she came into view, climbing out of a shiny black SUV that pulled away as soon as it shed itself of its four passengers. Sara looked tired, but her bandages were fresh. Both her eyes looked her natural brown for the moment.

“I’m sorry, Sara,” he said.

She patted his back. “Sorry doesn’t do any good. But you sent Derek after me instead of Sorokin, and that did.”

“I never thought they’d take you too.”

“I did.” Sara pulled back. “You’re way too sentimental to have command over your friends, you know that?”

“I do now.”

“Is my fool inside?” Sara pointed past Stiles to the Stilinski house.

“Yeah. He was arguing with Trick when I came out, but like, also not arguing?”

“That’s some sort of game for them. Just ignore it, or say something more ridiculous than either of them can think of.” Sara shook her head, quietly amused, and turned to head into the house.

Derek took Stiles’ hand once Sara had moved back. He slung Stiles’ arm across his own shoulders like he wanted to hug but took some of Stiles’ weight off his injured leg in the process.

“He’s dead,” Derek said with a nod to Cat. “Cat killed him.”

“Are you okay?” Stiles asked her.

Cat’s eyes widened in surprise, narrowed in uncertainty. “I’m fine.”

Stiles wasn’t sure what he had done wrong.

“I knew what I was doing,” Cat explained. “I knew it didn’t help when you killed him, and I never expected that to change when I did it. The point was to stop him, not erase what he's done.”

“We burned him,” Allison added. She spoke softly, but her voice sounded strained. She supported them, but likely never wanted to kill anyone. “I had Lydia check with Peter, and that should prevent anyone bringing him back again, though Peter thought the chances of anyone trying or succeeding at this point were low.”

Stiles nodded, not sure what to say.

“The agents who Scott’s father sent are processing everyone else at Sorokin’s base,” Derek said. “They let us ride in a helicopter back to town.”

“I’m not staying,” Allison said. “Lydia texted to say the others were meeting here, but I need to—” She cut off for a long, shaky breath. “I need to go to my father.”

Her aunt had just died. Her father had just killed his own sister.

Stiles slid out of Derek’s arms to hug Allison and promised to tell the others where she had gone.

“Don’t let them come after me,” she requested. “Not tonight.”

“I won’t. Do you need someone to walk with you?”

“I’d rather be alone.”

Stiles kissed her cheek and hugged her again, and then they let Allison walk home.

“Your dad’s not here,” Derek noted to Stiles as they entered the house together.

“He and Scott’s dad went to the station,” Stiles said. “Dad texted to tell me but hasn’t said more. He’s probably too busy right now.”

Inside, Sara had pushed Dumbo into a single couch cushion and sat beside him.

When she saw Stiles, Sara motioned him over with one hand. “Trick says your tattoo changed. Show me.”

Stiles let her hold his wrist to study the tattoo.

“Is this how you would have drawn it?” she asked Trick.

Trick shrugged. “It’s in my style, if that’s what you mean. I can’t know if that’s the exact design I’d have ended up with.”

“How did it change?”

“Fuck if I know.” Trick shrugged.

Sara looked up at Stiles. “Any ideas?”

“...Magic.”

She laughed and pushed his hand away.

Derek had taken Stiles’ armchair and pulled Stiles over to sit on the arm with Derek’s arms around his waist.

“Did the others do it?” Derek asked. “Is it over?”

“Yeah. I don’t have all the details yet, but, yeah, I think it’s over.”

Dumbo raised a hand. “Raf and I did the absolute best planning and coordination ever, after you lot abandoned us. He never actually told me how it went down, but we got Jesters in contact with FBI agents. I know at least some of them were supposed to get explosives. I _need_ him to tell me if anyone got exploded, especially Yukio.”

“You’ll have to be patient,” Sara said.

“Ew.” Dumbo made a face.

“I hear you saved Trick,” Sara prompted.

“Noticed Dorian nosing around Trick’s apartment while they were out, so I intercepted them and got a couple sidekicks to help me hide Trick until Stiles returned to save the day.”

Sara turned to Stiles next.

“Scott is the one who fought Dorian after Ethan and Isaac got their asses kicked.”

_She wants to hear about Hayden and Theo, not Dorian,_ Derek told him.

Stiles leveled a sidelong glare at Derek but said, “I helped Hayden a little though.”

Derek groaned. Sara raised an eyebrow. Trick snickered. Dumbo gave him a thumbs up.

Stiles launched into a vague and meandering explanation of the Doctors’ work with frequency, and Watchtower’s work with frequency, and the leftover effect growing more pronounced in the chimeras over time as the Doctors’ absence prevented adjustments. He suspected the dissonance might have been part of what triggered the mercury poisoning in chimeras back when the Doctors were around, and said so.

Dumbo looked very pleased, and Sara looked very bored, so Stiles knew this wasn’t what she’d wanted him to tell. He didn’t really know how to tell the rest. Derek dropped his head against Stiles’ arm and left it there, defeated.

Finally, Trick interrupted, “How did you get Theo to work with you?”

“I asked.”

Dumbo laughed.

“Stiles, _how_ are you the least emotionally intelligent person in a room containing Eddie?” Sara struggled to speak past barely contained laughter.

“Willfully.” Stiles made a face. “I told Theo that what he’d done had hurt him too, that I wanted to save him instead of hurt him more, and that I couldn’t do it alone. So… he helped.”

“That’s all it took?” Sara asked.

“I was quoting Scott, who is super inspirational by default. Mostly, I don’t think anyone offered to help Theo before.” Stiles fidgeted a little until Derek poked his ribs. “I also think I did a telepathy at him a little bit, but like, just to look around. I didn’t change anything. I couldn’t reach even if I’d wanted to because there was a giant ice wall in his brain.”

Sara’s eyes widened. “You can do that?”

Stiles lifted hands and shoulders in a sustained shrug.

Trick snorted.

“He is eloquent,” Sara said, as though agreeing with whatever Trick hadn’t said.

Stiles shifted his pose to point at the star talisman with just as much uncertainty as before.

“I can see it’s really important to you to figure out how you wind up in other people’s brains,” Sara noted.

“I was gonna chill tonight and let future Stiles worry about it, honestly. I’m tired.”

Derek said, “For the record, I’m glad you saved Theo. For your sake, not his.”

“I think Tracy’s the only one who cares for Theo’s sake, including Theo,” Stiles said.

“I’m also glad you missed killing Sorokin.”

“Did you…?”

Sara answered for him. “We missed it too. He was dead by the time we caught up with Allison and Cat.” After a second she pulled a pouch from her pocket, saying, “We got my eye back. Sorry I forgot to confirm that sooner. I’m going to sanitize it physically and spiritually.”

“Yeah, _he_ used it.” Stiles winced at the memory.

_You okay?_ Derek asked.

_I’ll be fine. It freaked me out, but I guess he can’t hurt us now._

Trick began taunting Dumbo, and they resumed their game of false arguments with occasional input from Sara.

_Are_ you _okay?_ Stiles asked Derek.

_I’ll be fine too._

_About what I did before…_

_I’m okay, and I know you won’t do it again. I’m not sure you could, now that I've felt how it works._

_I’m a very bad psychic,_ Stiles agreed.

_You’ve been getting better, very, very slowly._

_Jerk. I missed you._

_I missed you too._

**.x.**

Scott’s voice crackled through the speaker phone. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stick around.”

“We’re good, Scott. You explained your extreme truancy habit to me.”

Scott groaned. “I thought you wanted a favor from me.”

“I mean, yeah, but even Lydia said goodbye.”

Stiles closed the fridge with his hip since his hands were full of canned sodas. That was a mistake, according to his knee, but only a minor one. When he finally went back to physical therapy and explained that he had fallen on the knee and hurt it again, he was going to get the worst lecture. Second worst. Eventually, Allison would find out too.

Scott said, “They would have to be stupid to kick Lydia out. She’s a genius.”

“Well, you have magic powers that help you soothe animals, so a veterinary program would also be stupid to kick you out.”

“They don’t know I’m a werewolf.”

“You’re still the best, so maybe they should shut up and see it.” Stiles set the drinks on the counter.

“I still don’t see why you need my help. You can ask him directly.”

“He hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you.”

“He hates me and has refused to help me every time I’ve ever asked him to.”

“This is different. You’re trying to help someone else.”

“I can’t imagine he likes Theo any more than he likes me.”

“That’s not what he—” Scott made a strangled, frustrated sound. “When you asked him for help before, it was for the power to take revenge. That’s not what he does, so he couldn’t help.”

“It was definitely a choice on his part.”

“But now you’re trying to help someone else come back from exactly those sorts of things. That is what he does, so he’ll help you. He _did_ help when you told him about Aidan.”

“Begrudgingly, so I think he’ll believe it more if it comes from you.”

“Fine, but you still have to ask him yourself. I’m only explaining the circumstances for you.”

“Thank you, Scott.”

“This is really important to you, isn’t it?”

“Theo’s sort of like my fresh start, and Deaton’s sort of hyper-aware of my past mistakes.”

“Do you…” Scott paused, but not seeing him made it hard to guess why. “Do you believe Theo is going to try to be better?”

“He knows I can kick his ass if he returns to his evil ways.”

“You almost died.”

“I barely needed backup. The weakest member of his pack turned the tide for me.”

“Corey still has super strength.”

“Yeah, but he’s the least down-to-fight person in the entire town.” Stiles shook his head. That wasn’t his point.

“That’s not a bad thing.”

“I know. Maybe we can do like you said in the car, make it so he won’t need to fight anymore.”

Stiles couldn’t see Scott’s face, but somehow he _felt_ Scott grinning proudly at him despite the miles between them.

Stiles cleared his throat. “Anyway, I’ve adopted them all as my children, I guess. I should probably inform Derek that he’s a father.”

Scott laughed. “Speaking of your boyfriend, tell him to call me back.”

“He’s afraid if he calls you, you’re going to make him your second and put him in charge.”

“Co-second. Allison is definitely also in charge. Even when I’m in town.”

Stiles chuckled.

Scott said, “I need to believe you all have it handled when I’m away. So I can stay away.”

“We do.”

“Allison and Derek are the only people in town I think have a chance of controlling _you._ Well, Allison, anyway.”

“Oh, shit, you’re right.”

“I know. I am the alpha.”

“The smug alpha.”

“I could use an emissary. Deaton won’t stay forever. He was retired before I was bitten.”

“We’re working on it. You’re talking to him. I think you knew it was for more than just Theo.”

“I’m just saying, don’t be an ass when you talk to him.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Your best?”

“My _real_ best. I promise.” Stiles gave up trying to juggle the phone and drinks all at once. “I gotta go. Text me after you talk to him.”

“Text me after you do too.”

Stiles brought the sodas out to where the others waited for him, most of them sitting around the table on the porch. Peter and Malia were in the yard, wrestling or training, maybe both. Either way, Peter seemed to be enjoying himself. Derek had taken the bench and scooted now to make room for Stiles beside him while Noah and Rafael turned away from watching the superhuman antics of the nearby werewolf and werecoyote.

“Next time,” Stiles said, “Someone without a limp gets these. Also, I left my cane in the kitchen, and can someone empty my arms and then go get it.”

Noah sighed, took the drinks, and guided Stiles to a seat, in that order. Derek snickered, moving only to select a drink.

As soon as he sat, Stiles realized he could have carried the drinks with his brain. Someday, he would remember that he was a powerful mage, or whatever you called someone wielding magic talismans. Training himself to actually use his power outside of combat and confrontation was step one of his plan for now.

“Thanks, Stiles,” Rafael said as he took a drink from the table Noah left them on.

Stiles scrunched his nose. “You’re still here.”

“Not sure where you think I’d have gone in the time it took to walk to the kitchen and back.”

“I also took a phone call.” Stiles made a face at Rafael and grabbed his own soda before anyone else could take his favorite.

“Edmund said you wanted to talk to me,” Rafael said.

“I want the information you have about how things are going; that’s not the same thing.”

To be honest, Stiles had hoped, and strongly hinted, that Derek would ask Rafael a few pointed questions while Stiles was inside.

Rafael sighed almost exactly the same sigh Noah had and motioned with his thumb toward Peter and Malia. “Are they supposed to be in this?”

“They have super hearing, so they can join us if they hear something they care about, I guess.”

Rafael grimaced. “Of course they do.”

“As does your son.”

“I know, I know.” Rafael leaned back and waved his hand. “We’re here to talk, let’s talk. Did your father explain yet why we went to the station?”

Noah had said that with the FBI mole in custody, Rafael’s superiors had ordered him to begin coordinating with local law enforcement. Since there were various locales, it was primarily over the phone, but he and Noah called in a few deputies to help coordinate, which made working at the station itself most sensible.

Stiles said as much, and Rafael nodded confirmation.

“Do you care about how we managed it, or only the results?” Rafael asked.

“Just talk.”

“Working with local police meant we could deploy officers to Watchtower locations much more quickly than waiting for agents to fly out or the national guard to assemble, not that anyone would ever confirm to me if we had been authorized to mobilize the guard, so I’d guess that was stuck in bureaucracy.”

“Whaaaaaat. America would _never._ ”

“Really, Stiles?”

At least Derek was laughing, if only internally.

Noah said, “I missed most of this because Scott brought in Brenna Dorian, so I was processing her.”

Stiles had already spoken to Scott and knew that while Isaac and Ethan had been hurt, both were already healed. Melissa had helped treat Ethan, but Isaac’s healing factor had been enough for his injuries. Scott was too humble to say how he defeated an opponent who escaped Peter and Theo; he kept insisting they would have taken her earlier if they’d worked together.

“Cormac Flynn is dead. I assume that was them.” Rafael pointed again to Peter and Malia. “Many of Dorian’s people scattered, and we lost more than a few in the confusion. The distraction also made room for some of Yukio Jackson’s followers to escape, though Jackson himself was ‘mysteriously’ delivered right to us.”

“We call him Yukio because we knew a guy named Jackson, actually.”

“I don’t care.”

“Two guys named Jackson if you count Jax, but he does use a nickname.”

“Jax is a nickname?” Derek asked, though Stiles couldn’t tell without cheating if Derek was serious.

“Yeah, his name is… fuck, I know this.” Stiles was certain Sara had told him. He snapped his fingers when it came to him. “Jackson Ridgmar.”

“That was really difficult for you.” Derek did not manage to say it with a straight face.

“I thought you wanted to hear this?” Rafael scowled at Stiles and Derek alike.

“This is how I process information, okay. Just let it be.” Stiles raised his voice to shout, “Peter, was it you or Setter who got Yukio?”

Malia knocked Peter down when he was distracted and laughed over him.

Peter rolled his eyes and trudged to the porch. “We managed that together. Setter had already located him and sent Spade to bring Malia and I in for backup to ensure he couldn't escape. Then we all made ourselves scarce rather than deal with any questions.”

“You wouldn’t have been detained,” Rafael said. “We told them we had operatives within each location, and Edmund got us the names.”

“Dumbo,” Stiles corrected. “Or, Felix, technically, but he still seems attached to Dumbo.”

Rafael shook his head. “I refuse to call him Dumbo, and he refuses to answer to Felix.”

Peter leaned over the rail and pointed to the drinks Stiles had brought. “Can I have one of those?”

“Go for it.” Stiles pushed one over to him. He turned back to Rafael. “How are you going to make sure your Watchtower prisoners stay prisoners this time?”

“I can’t tell that to a civilian, Stiles.”

“But you have plans?”

“Of course.”

“Ones capable of restraining werewolves? Because you don’t have humans this time.”

“Brynn Naramsin was also a werewolf,” Rafael reminded him.

“And you lost her.”

“She didn’t escape; she was assassinated.”

“I think you’re lucky _you_ weren’t assassinated.”

“We’ve developed more countermeasures to prevent another mole as well.”

“Shouldn’t you have had those before?”

“We did.” Rafael gritted his teeth. “Before you ask, we found the weakness he exploited and eliminated it.”

“What was it?”

“I can’t tell you that either.”

“Is it embarrassing?”

“Stiles, you know I can’t reveal confidential information to you.”

“Yeah, but if you could, would it be embarrassing?”

“No, it would be boring. You would find almost every aspect of my job, including this operation, boring. It’s a lot less saving people than it is organization and paperwork.”

“Oh no, I think you managed to be right about something.”

Rafael rubbed his temple like he was fighting a headache.

“Oh no,” Stiles said again, recognizing the gesture. “I’m to everyone else what Dumbo is to me.”

Derek laughed out loud this time.

Rafael sighed the sigh Stiles wished he could sigh at Dumbo on a daily basis. “If that’s enough to satisfy your curiosity for now, that paperwork I mentioned still needs doing.”

“Ew.”

“Does that mean I can go?”

“I can’t stop you. Or, I _can_ , but I’m not about that.”

“Do you have any more questions that you need me to stay to answer right now?”

“Only if you have anything actually interesting or new that you’re cleared to tell me but I haven’t thought to ask about yet.”

“I don’t. I thought your father told you that.” Rafael eyed Noah.

“I tried,” Noah sighed.

“Come on,” Stiles urged. “I can keep a secret.”

Derek coughed.

Stiles glared at him.

“Fine. Go work the paper,” Stiles grumbled.

Rafael groaned as he left.

“Hey, while you’re in there, wanna bring me my cane?” Stiles called after him, but Rafael ignored it.

_You okay?_ Derek asked. _With it all being done?_

_Yes. Sorry. Was I weird?_

_Not by your standards._

_:(_

_Please, don’t do that._

_I’m gonna! >:)_

_It’s annoying._

_But I love you!~ <3<3<3<333_

Derek laughed. He stifled it and covered his mouth.

_You’re blushing. Are you embarrassed?_ Stiles teased.

_I’m not blushing._

_If you’re not busy being mortified, why didn’t you say it back? :’(_

_Oh my god. I love you too. You dork._

_:D_

“Peter, look at this!” Malia called from where she had climbed into the large tree that dominated the backyard.

Peter left his drink on the porch railing and jogged back to Malia, leaping fully into the tree from the ground.

“Not getting used to that,” Noah mumbled to himself. He shook his head and turned back to Stiles. “Chris told me they buried Kate in her grave, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. Do you know how Allison’s holding up?”

“Lydia was with her,” Derek said. “She helped a little.”

“Allison said she’s taking a few days off from school. Her dad helped her arrange it, I guess.” Stiles frowned at his hands. “She’s obviously not doing great now, but she’ll be okay.”

Noah nodded. “And what about you two?”

Stiles shrugged. “I’m fine.”

Derek pinched his arm, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to offend Stiles.

Noah said, “Stiles, you focused yourself completely on Watchtower, and now it’s gone. Do you know what’s next for you?”

“Sort of, maybe,” Stiles admitted. “It’s not really school or work, though.” He knew that was what people really wanted from him, what would convince them he had moved on.

“Hobbies or volunteering count too.”

“I’ll let you know if it works out.”

“However it goes, I’m proud of you for trying. Come here; I need to hug you.”

Stiles pretended to groan as his father leaned over Derek to squeeze him in a too-tight hug.

Once he had released Stiles and taken his own seat across the table, Noah asked Derek, “What about you? Any plans yet?”

“I might apply for online classes. Before… before I came back to Beacon Hills, I was studying history. I doubt my credits will transfer, but I don’t mind too much if I redo them. I never made it far.”

“A history major?” Noah asked.

“Is that strange?”

“Not at all. It just seems a little hands-off for you.”

Derek shrugged uncomfortably. “I considered archaeology or literature too, and I’m still working on the building. Eventually, we’ll be able to let our supernatural guests stay there instead of squatting in buildings on the dead side of town when they visit.”

“Is _that_ what all that’s for?” Stiles asked, but they ignored him.

Noah smiled. “I’m proud of you too, Derek. Let me know if you need anything. I write excellent letters of recommendation.”

“You copy and paste the same letter with different fill-in-the-blank adjectives!” Stiles accused.

“It’s an excellent letter.”

“You two,” Peter said, dropping into the chair on Stiles’ left, “are extremely related.”

Malia snatched the drink Peter was reaching for with a grin.

“You take after your mother,” Peter complained.

“She’s an assassin,” Malia said, “not a thief.”

Peter shrugged. “She irks me.”

“I irk you?”

“When you steal from me.”

“These are the sheriff’s.”

“I don’t have another retort.”

Malia grinned. “I win.”

Peter sighed, but there was something softer beneath it, something happier.

Love.

Stiles had never felt anything quite like it from Peter. He had come close. Peter did love Derek still, but it was a strained love, damaged by the hurt they’d caused each other.

Stiles reached over the gap between their chairs to set his left hand on Peter’s arm and felt the threads still hanging on, the leftovers of their frayed bond. He didn’t put it to words, but he knew, now that he felt them, he could cut the last threads, sever their bond, free Peter from him.

Peter set his hand over Stiles’. “Don’t.”

Stiles nodded. He took his hand back.

Noah sighed. “Well, I’ve got almost as much paperwork to get through as Rafael. I’d better go too.”

“Will you be back in time for dinner?” Stiles asked.

“I will. See you then, son.”

Peter asked, “Are we done then? I thought there’d be more moralizing.”

“What does that mean?” Malia asked.

“Definition, or what did I think they’d be saying?”

“Second one.”

“Mostly lectures on how I should have let Flynn live.”

“We tried to. It didn’t work.”

“I know, but they don’t. They didn’t even ask. I had a whole explanation ready with notes on when to look remorseful and a moment to clench my fist to my chest as though holding back my overflowing regret.”

“Really?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Does that work?”

“Sometimes.”

“Hm.” Her brow furrowed in thought.

Stiles said, “It doesn’t work on me. I’d know if you were full of shit.”

“It would have been the truth, just… exaggerated.”

“Hold onto it for when Scott gets back into town.”

Peter grimaced. “On that note…”

He stood and motioned to ask if Malia was joining him. She nodded and followed, taking the soda she’d stolen from Peter.

There wasn’t much to see in the backyard with everyone gone. The tree’s leaves shifted slightly as the breeze passed among them. A squirrel hurried down its trunk and across the yard. Stiles’ drink fizzed softly in the can.

Derek’s thoughts grew heavy, but Stiles waited for him to put them to words.

_I thought I would die,_ Derek thought. _I didn’t know how; I just didn’t believe I would survive the fall of Watchtower. When I made you promise to move on, it was because I thought I wouldn’t be strong enough to save you without giving my life for yours._

_I glad that didn’t fucking happen._

_Me too._

_When I agreed to move on without you, I lied a little._

_I know. Me too._

_I’ll promise you for real now, but I think your life expectancy is longer than mine._

_Healing magic might extend your life, actually._

_Ooh, good point._ Stiles grinned. _Then let’s very slowly grow old together._

_As if we could manage it apart._

_We could._

Derek thought it over. _We might._

_Let’s not though._

Derek kissed him.

**.x.**

Deaton's clinic was empty of pet owners. Stiles pushed into the back, giving the door a quick rap with his cane to let Deaton know he was coming. He found Deaton at his desk, filling out some form or another in a room lit more by the quickly dimming sunlight streaming through the open blinds than the meager lamp on his desk.

Stiles leaned against the doorframe to take the weight from his bad leg as he crossed his arms, cane now dangling too high to reach the ground as he held it hooked around his wrist at chest height.

Stiles took his time studying the druid before he spoke. "You told me you couldn't teach me because I couldn't maintain balance."

Deaton nodded, looking up from his paperwork. "I hear your tattoo changed.”

Stiles groaned. Deaton was always like this.

“May I see it?” Deaton asked.

Stiles crossed the office and held out his left wrist for Deaton to study.

“The Star,” Deaton mused, “follows the Tower in the major arcana.”

“Is that… good?”

“It is often considered a sign of renewal.”

“So that’s a yes?”

Deaton sighed. “I assume you will insist on,” he fumbled for the right word, “flippancy.”

“I can be serious, but it’s harder when the people around me are being vague.”

“Scott told me why you’re here.” Deaton took his coat from the back of his chair and draped it over his arm. “There is something you and I must do because, I believe, you and I are the only ones who can.”

“Okay, but that’s still vague.”

“I’ll explain on the way.”

“Oh, you mean _now.”_

Deaton motioned for Stiles to precede him out of the clinic and removed a small box from his desk before turning off the lights. He didn’t say anything else of use until they were both in the Jeep heading to the preserve that surrounded the town.

Derek asked, _Should I meet you out there?_

_No. I’ll be fine with Deaton._

Derek let his worry seep through the bond but withdrew.

“I’ve kept in touch with your friend Trick, trying in vain to make them refuse you more tattoos.”

“Are you the one who’s been freaking them out about the blood magic?”

“If it were only me, I think they would have disregarded the warnings entirely. They should have stopped, but at least they began protecting themself.”

“What does Trick have to do with us going to the woods alone at night?” Stiles asked.

“I told you before that I don't channel magic myself, but I believe I need someone now who can. Through Trick’s tattoos, you, Stiles, can channel the magic we need to save the nemeton.”

“The nemeton?” Stiles knew bits and pieces about the big, chopped down, magic tree in the forest outside Beacon Hills. The darach had used it, forcing Scott, Allison, and Lydia to sacrifice themselves to it. The tree acted as a beacon, drawing monsters to Beacon Hills. But it repelled them too, Stiles remembered. Nike had told him the tree was broken.

“It slept or half-slept for many years, but fully waking the nemeton also released those it held. The nogitsune escaped to possess Allison. The Dread Doctors, for long years only able to partially enter this world due to the nemeton’s power holding them at bay, finally broke its hold over them and created a new batch of chimeras for their experiments.”

“You mean they’d done this before?”

“Yes. I’ve seen one other operating theater belonging to them, but I doubt there were only the two.”

“If the nemeton is supposed to be a beacon and a prison, but now it’s drawing in and pushing away, does that mean they reversed the direction of the force holding them in?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I think you will find it very similar to the changes they made to the chimeras, which you have already corrected.”

“So I’m supposed to do the same thing to the big tree stump.”

“I’ll help you align the nemeton spiritually as you do.”

“Cool.”

“Stiles, it’s important that you stay focused as you work. Your power can be chaotic, and unrestrained chaos is anathema to the work we do tonight.”

“Is this like a test?”

“This is what we must do to protect our home.”

“But is it _also_ like a test to see if I can hold chaos at bay or whatever?”

Deaton sighed. “No, it’s not a test.”

“Then you already decided if you’ll teach me or not.”

“Right now, you need to focus on the nemeton.”

“No, right now I’m driving. Will you teach me?”

“If you go into this in an emotional state, you’ll find balance much more difficult.”

“So you won’t teach me, but you didn’t want to tell me because you need me to do this for you.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Well, it’s what I heard, so if you want to say something else, now’s a good time to speak up.”

“I will teach you, Stiles, if you can maintain balance.”

“So it is a test, and you lied.”

“It’s not a test. I already know you can do this because you’ve done it four times.”

“So something else is the test.”

“Every day of the rest of your life is a test, Stiles, but I am not the proctor. You are. Your nature naturally aligns nearer chaos than order, but it takes both to achieve balance as druids understand it. You will learn as much as you can, and when you can learn no more, I will teach you no more.”

It took effort to keep his eyes on the road. “If it’s not a test, is it like my first lesson?”

Deaton laughed despite himself and sucked in air as if trying to hold his first response back. “When Scott left, he said he believed that only Allison, of everyone in Beacon Hills, could truly keep you in line. I just realized he included me in that assessment.”

“Hey, if it helps, he included me too.”

“No, Stiles, that’s worse.”

Stiles pulled the Jeep over when Deaton indicated, but they had to hike into the woods to find the nemeton.

Deaton asked, “Can you feel where it is?”

Stiles stopped walking. “Do you not know?”

“It can hide itself.”

“And you’re just telling me now?”

“You will find I tell you many things in the moment you need them and not before. There is no way to tell you everything ahead of time.”

“Is that a lesson too?”

“Do you think it is?”

Stiles grimaced, muttering vaguely to himself.

He knelt and set his left hand against the earth. Closing his eyes, he listened to the forest. There was little birdsong in the darkness, but insects filled the air instead with their softer hum. Leaves rustled in the wind. The forest pulsed with life.

A counterbeat, out of time, out of tune, but stronger nearly than the whole rest of the forest combined. So loud it filled Stiles’ ears, rushing over him. Even when Stiles stood, lifting his fingers and star talisman from contact with the earth, he heard the nemeton’s lurching pulse.

“The nemeton is stronger than I can handle,” Stiles said. “It’s a lot more than even Theo, and I needed his help.”

“That’s why you’re not alone. Can you lead us there?”

With a nod, Stiles took the first step. Each step after was harder than the last. The off-beat psychic waves coming off the nemeton repelled him.

“Trees don’t have brains, right?”

“No.”

“How come it’s psychic?”

“Psychic and mystic energies are often linked despite their differences. I suspect it was psychic energy which the Doctors used to tamper with the typically more mystical nemeton.”

The huge stump came into view in a clearing ahead. Stiles pointed to it and stepped through the last of the trees at Deaton’s side.

“A moment while I prepare,” Deaton said.

He took the thin box he had lifted from his desk out of his pocket. The box contained a sprig of leaves and berries beside a vial of water. Deaton placed the twig on the stump and sprinkled the water over it.

“These are from a rowan, or mountain ash, tree,” Deaton said. “They are to show the nemeton our intended alignment. Oaks are so powerful they can shift their own alignment, but rowans are steadfast.”

“Weird.”

“The water is purifying.”

“It’s not enough water to actually wash anything, so I guess it’s symbolic?”

Deaton nodded. He set his hands against the nemeton’s stump and closed his eyes. “Join me now, and try to sense the nemeton. Do not act yet.”

Stiles knelt beside Deaton and set both hands against the old stump because Deaton had, even though Stiles only seemed to access his talisman by touching with his left hand.

The nemeton’s frequency fought against Stiles’, even at rest as they were. Something small and bright brushed against it, the offerings Deaton had laid out. A force so small could not change the great tree. Stiles, though stronger than a few leaves, berries, and drops of water, still fell far short of the nemeton.

“Feel how the nemeton’s energy flows through the forest,” Deaton instructed.

“It doesn’t,” Stiles said. “It’s repelled.”

“Then feel where it should.”

Stiles found the choke points. The nemeton’s energy flowed outward and back in again like a circulatory system through the heart, or it should have. Where it clashed against the forest’s incompatible energy, it churned back against itself.

“I see it,” Stiles said.

“Now, feel the rowan.”

Stiles had already noticed it but focused on the soft, protective shine of the rowan. It was too little to clash against the nemeton as the forest did, but it was too strong in its own bright song to fall to the warped frequency pulsing outward from the nemeton.

“Show the rowan to the nemeton.”

“Um. They’re trees.”

“Just try.”

Stiles reached for a small current of the nemeton’s energy, just a tendril small enough to fit within the rowan’s energy, and he threaded it through the rowan’s light. When it came out the other side, that one tendril of the nemeton’s power pulsed in time with the rowan, with Stiles, with the forest, with the frequency of _this_ world.

Though Stiles tried to pull back, the thread held him tethered. It was thin, never growing thicker, but it showed no sign of ever ending. The purified thread of power wound itself around a second corrupted thread and purified it. The pure threads split, working on two fronts until those grew large enough to work on four. In his mind’s eye, Stiles saw countless brilliantly glowing threads wrapping around and purifying the dark, rusty energy of the misaligned nemeton. And still, the thread he worked with flowed.

“I think it’s working,” Deaton said. “It should be able to handle the rest itself.”

“I can’t stop,” Stiles said. “It won’t let me.”

He tried again to pull back, to let the thread push itself or let the others take over. The nemeton held him firmly in place.

“It’s okay. See it through.”

“Is it safe?”

“Trust me, Stiles.”

“That was a yes or n—”

The nemeton pulled Stiles’ focus back in. He poured himself into passing it through the tiny sprig of rowan. The nemeton flowed through the forest again, no longer clashing. Its flow grew even and soft.

The thread in Stiles’ hands thickened. Soon, it would overwhelm the small sample of rowan. Stiles tried to reach for another thread to strengthen the rowan before the remaining poison overwhelmed it, but they flowed through his fingers like sand. The only part of the tree he could still touch was that which held him firmly in place.

The rowan’s light flickered. The thread grew too powerful, no longer so much a thread as a rope. Stiles couldn’t let the rowan fail. He needed more light.

He used his own.

Stiles held two palms against the great nemeton’s stump and channeled its energy through one hand, through his body, and out the other hand, back to the nemeton itself.

The rope’s end approached, connected to a pulsing mass which pushed the Doctors’ frequency out from itself like a scream. It passed into Stiles, still screaming. He choked on it, but he couldn’t hold his breath. He forced the air in and out and through the distorted, beating heart of the nemeton until finally, it passed out of him, beating in time with his own heart at last.

It was done.

The nemeton released Stiles and flowed joyously into the forest, into the world, one at last with the earth.

Stiles collapsed forward gasping, exhausted.

“Stiles!” Deaton placed a hand on his back and leaned forward. “Are you okay?”

“Just tired.” Stiles breathed, though even that left him aching.

Deaton examined him anyway.

With the nemeton gone, Derek found his way back, and in feeling that, Stiles realized the nemeton had held other minds separate from Stiles’. Not by choice any more than the riptide would pull them to sea by choice.

Even Peter had felt it and worried now, though he couldn’t interrogate Stiles psychically the way Derek could.

_What happened?_ Derek demanded. He was in his car already, driving out to meet Stiles.

_It’s fine._

Derek growled.

_The Doctors forced the nemeton’s frequency out of alignment just like they did the chimeras’. We fixed it. It wasn’t trying to hurt me, and I’m not in danger now. I just feel like I ran several miles while holding my breath._

_You weren’t ready for this._

_I would never be ready for this, and it’s better for everyone that it’s done sooner. Call Peter for me; he’s freaking out._

Derek grimaced at the thought of speaking to his uncle, but he would do it for Stiles. Stiles pressed gently against his mind, urging Derek out of his thoughts for now.

“You seem fine,” Deaton said, though his voice lacked its usual calm.

“I did it,” Stiles gasped. “It worked.” He laughed, though it hurt his lungs.

“I didn't anticipate it taking so heavy a toll. The nemeton should have had the power to heal itself.” Deaton sounded apologetic. If he’d ever used such a tone before, it hadn’t been to Stiles.

“It needed a little help with its heart. I don’t know what that would be literally, but the psychic metaphor my brain filtered it through was a heart.”

“I’ve always heard you’re a poor psychic.” This time, Deaton’s tone implied truth contradicted his words.

“I had a sort of mental block. It’s gone now.”

Though Deaton’s face wore the expression most did before shaking their heads at what Stiles said, he nodded. “When you’re recovered enough for the walk, we’ll head back.”

“Yeah.” Stiles leaned back against the nemeton, breathing slow and shallow to give his aching lungs a break.

_I could carry you,_ Derek offered.

_I thought you left. Go home, silly._

_Peter says warn him next time._

_I didn’t know._

_I told him that. He said find out ahead of time._

_He would._

Stiles pushed Derek back again, but Derek slipped past.

_You’re right. You are improving._ Derek grinned. _I’m still the better psychic._

Stiles laughed again and winced at the pain.

_Sorry,_ Derek told him.

_Next time,_ you _heal the magic tree._

When Stiles pushed him back again, Derek went with something that felt like blowing a kiss, so Stiles imagined blowing one back just before Derek’s mind passed out of reach.

Deaton sat watching Stiles, though it was hard to say whether he was still worried or if he had noticed Stiles’ expression going slack as it often did when he spoke to Derek. Stiles needed to work on that.

“Hey, Deaton,” Stiles said even though his voice was weak.

“Yes, Stiles?”

"I'm ready for balance now."

With a soft smile, Deaton leaned against the tree trunk beside Stiles to wait. "Yes, you are."

Stiles felt the pulse of life through the nemeton, through the forest, through the city, circulating through it all and back to its source, to the nemeton, to Stiles where he leaned against its bark. His heart beat in time with the forest.

It wasn’t good, exactly, not like Scott was good, but it was right. The tree, the forest, Stiles, together without the cruel forces that hurt them. Life flowed through them together like a song, different in every one of them, in every person, in every animal, in every plant and every leaf, but harmonizing together in their differences. In balance.

**End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to every single one of you who read this! Extra thanks to Chiomi who beta’d several of Watchtower’s installments; they are so much better thanks to you! 
> 
> Aaaaaaaaaah I can’t believe it’s done


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